Giving Compass' Take:

· Lloyd Alter takes a look at the benefits of timber construction, including storing carbon and supplying new jobs. 

· Is timber construction sustainable? What other benefits come with this practice? How can donors support sustainable construction methods?

· Learn about the challenges of balancing sustainable development. 

TreeHugger has been covering the mass timber scene for a dozen years, starting with Waugh Thistleton's timber tower in Hackney. Now Tim Smedley of the BBC talks to Andrew Waugh and writes a really thorough article that looks at the benefits of building with wood. He starts, as we do, with the carbon footprint, and the fact that trees are the best form of carbon capture and storage. Waugh says:

The machines being created for locking carbon in and burying are not as efficient as trees”, he enthuses. “Just grow more trees!

Smedley and Waugh visit Dalston Lane, as TreeHugger did a few years ago. At the time, it was the largest CLT building in the world. Waugh explains how the building is much lighter than concrete (important when you are built on top of a train line) and how much carbon it stores.

To really draw down CO2, all the trees that are cut have to be sustainably harvested and replaced with new planting. When I have complained to Waugh that as much as half of the mass of the tree is left behind in roots and slash, he responded: "Plant two trees!" For mass timber to really work the way it is promised, that is the kind of analysis that will have to be done- how much planting is necessary to not only replace the trees that were cut but also the CO2-releasing parts left behind.

Read the full article about timber construction by Lloyd Alter at TreeHugger.