Wood as a sustainable building material: advantages for the environment and climate protection
Wood is a renewable natural raw material that offers many ecological advantages over other building materials. Unlike the production of technical raw materials, which require fossil fuels, wood is produced exclusively using solar energy.
As it grows, wood removes the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and stores it in the form of carbon (C). When a forest produces one cubic meter of wood, it removes around one tonne of CO2 from the air.
This stored carbon remains bound in long-lasting wood products, such as houses or furniture, for decades. A single-family house made of wood, for example, binds over 25 tons of CO2. Timber construction therefore makes an important contribution to climate protection.
In Germany, around 118 million tonnes of CO2 are stored in wood products, and the use of wood prevents the release of around 80 million tonnes of CO2 each year.
Thanks to modern innovations such as glued laminated timber and cross-laminated timber, wood has become a high-tech building material that is now used in construction far beyond roof trusses.
In some federal states such as Baden-Württemberg, the proportion of timber construction is already almost 30 percent. Thanks to its positive environmental impact and the long lifespan of timber buildings, which can be up to 100 years or more, sustainable timber construction is becoming increasingly popular and is actively contributing to climate protection.
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