The anticipated growth and urbanization of the global population over the next several decades will create a vast demand for the construction of new housing, commercial buildings and accompanying infrastructure. The production of cement, steel and other building materials associated with this wave of construction will become a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. Might it be possible to transform this potential threat to the global climate system into a powerful means to mitigate climate change? To answer this provocative question, we explore the potential of mid-rise urban buildings designed with engineered timber to provide long-term storage of carbon and to avoid the carbon-intensive production of mineral-based construction materials. Increasing urbanization will lead to a significant expansion of buildings and related infrastructure, major sources of greenhouse gas emissions. This Perspective discusses the possibility of constructing mid-rise urban buildings with engineered timber for long-term carbon storage and carbon emissions reduction.

Buildings as a global carbon sink

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Substitution effects of wood-based products in climate change mitigation

The increasing production of modern bioenergy carriers and biomaterials intensifies the competition for different applications of biomass. To be able to optimize and develop biomass utilization in a sustainable way, this paper first reviews the status and prospects of biomass value chains for heat, power, fuels and materials, next assesses their current and long-term levelized production costs and avoided emissions, and then compares their greenhouse gas abatement costs. At present, the economically and environmentally preferred options are wood chip and pellet combustion in district heating systems and large-scale cofiring power plants (75-81 US$(2005)/tCO(2)-eq(avoided)), and large-scale fermentation of low-cost Brazilian sugarcane to ethanol (-65 to -53 $/tCO(2)-eq(avoided)) or biomaterials (-60 to 50 $/tCO(2)-eq(avoided) for ethylene and -320 to -228 $/tCO(2)-eq(avoided) for PLA; negative costs represent cost- effective options). In the longer term, the cultivation and use of lignocellulosic energy crops can play an important role in reducing the costs and improving the emission balance of biomass value chains. Key conversion technologies for lignocellulosic biomass are large-scale gasification (bioenergy and biomaterials) and fermentation (biofuels and biomaterials). However, both routes require improvement of their technological and economic performance. Further improvements can be attained by biorefineries that integrate different conversion technologies to maximize the use of all biomass components. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Competing uses of biomass : Assessment and comparison of the performance of bio-based heat, power, fuels and materials

Assessment and comparison of the performance of bio-based heat, power, fuels and materials

Studying the future of the forest sector: Review and implications for long-term outlook studies

Using wood as a building material affects the carbon balance through several mechanisms. This paper describes a modelling approach that integrates a wood product substitution model, a global partia ...

Climate change mitigation through increased wood use in the European construction sector—towards an integrated modelling framework

Short-term forecasting models for the Finnish forest sector: lumber exports and sawlog demand

In the European sawnwood markets, competition is tight between producer countries, with the new EU countries gradually gaining larger market shares. This paper focuses on the pass-through of sawnwood prices to supplier countries’ national roundwood prices. Price-change effects on market shares are known to be large, but not so much is known about the timing and duration of price transmission between competitor countries. Our empirical analysis concerns the exports of four large sawnwood supplier countries in Europe (Finland, Austria, Estonia and the Czech Republic) to German markets, using quarterly panel data for 1995–2003. The transmission process was found to differ between countries, and the relationship was most clearly detectable between Finnish sawlog and sawnwood prices. Results based on seemingly unrelated regression analysis indicated that price transmission exhibits similarities between old (i.e. Austria, Finland) and new EU member countries (Estonia, Czech Republic). Overall developments in both sawnwood and sawlog prices displayed convergence in the study period, which indicates that deepening integration in European markets is also detectable in the forest sector.

Transmission of price changes in sawnwood and sawlog markets of the new and old EU member countries

Biodiversity value and the optimal location of forest conservation sites in Southern Finland

On a verifie l'arbitrage en utilisant l'hypothese de la « loi d'un seul prix » (LOP) pour les importations de papier journal du Royaume Uni et de l'Allemagne en provenance de Finlande, de Suede et du Canada. La LOP stipule que les prix des biens homogenes de consommation courante, definis par une devise commune, sont egaux a travers le monde. Le concept de la co-integration et la methode multivariee de Johansen ont ete employes pour verifier la LOP a long terme. Des donnees empiriques trimestrielles couvrant la periode 1980-1994 ont ete utilisees. L'hypothese selon laquelle la LOP est valide pour les trois pays fournisseurs simultanement, n'a pas ete confirmee par les resultats de la methode multivariee pour aucun des pays importateurs. Les tests de co-integration ont rejete la simultaneite de la LOP entre les trois prix d'importations pour les deux marches. La LOP a aussi ete verifiee par paire, et on a constate qu'elle etait validee entre les prix suedois et canadien sur le marche du Royaume Uni.

R. Hänninen

Papers

Climate change mitigation through increased wood use in the European construction sector—towards an integrated modelling framework

Short-term forecasting models for the Finnish forest sector: lumber exports and sawlog demand

Transmission of price changes in sawnwood and sawlog markets of the new and old EU member countries

Biodiversity value and the optimal location of forest conservation sites in Southern Finland

Testing arbitrage in newsprint imports to United Kingdom and Germany