Tommy Linstroth is founder and CEO of Green tiea leading SaaS provider that simplifies sustainability and ESG in the construction industry.
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Technological leaps make it easier to build structures with fewer negative impacts and potentially mitigate climate change, but more needs to be done to accelerate their widespread use.
More and more attention is being paid to embodied carbon: amounts of CO2 that are emitted during the production and life cycle of building materials. For commercial buildings, these are primarily the concrete and steel that make up the structure and substructure, which are typically responsible for more than 50% of the embodied carbon footprint. And studies from NOAA’s Global Monitoring Lab indicate that CO2 alone is responsible for about two-thirds of the total heating impact of all man-made greenhouse gases.
Happy according to The recent Deloitte reportcompanies are increasingly devoting resources to sustainability. “If there was any doubt that climate change is an enduring part of the corporate agenda, the increased focus on sustainability by leaders over the past year should dispel it,” said Joe Ucuzoglu, CEO of Deloitte Global. “The way forward will take time, it will require investment from companies and it will be driven by new and innovative technologies and creative approaches.”
Fueled by business leaders with the leeway for—even pushing toward—sustainable construction, we may be witnessing a rapid upheaval in innovative green building materials such as solid wood and carbon-negative concrete. If supported soon enough, these technological developments will have a significant and positive impact on climate change.
The Mass Timber Promise
Although the concept has been around for more than 30 years, technology to transform sustainable wood is one such innovation that has finally reached its tipping point. Solid wood or cross-laminated timber (CLT) is developed by gluing or nailing together wood boards in cross-grain patterns and treating them with flame retardants to create a building material that is stronger and more fire-resistant than traditional wood.
It is a renewable, recyclable and biodegradable choice for low-carbon construction because it reduces the energy, resources and emissions-heavy impact of concrete or steel production. The use of solid wood also reduces the amount of harmful chemicals released after construction (outgassing) that are common with steel and traditional concrete. And during growth, trees grown for production naturally absorb and remove carbon from the environment and provide us with oxygen. There are others environmental effects of CLTbut with good forest management I think the benefits of replacing steel and concrete with solid wood outweigh the potential drawbacks.
U.S. construction projects are lagging behind other countries that use engineered wood. According to the Council on Tall Timber and Urban Habitat, the emergence of multi-story buildings using new wood technology dates back to Swedish construction in the early 2000s. But the dam may have broken, allowing it to be used much more widely in the US more insurance companies cover it and US agencies restructure building codes to allow for CLT construction. In 2021, New York approved CLT in up to six story (up to 85 feet) constructionand at the end of last year, California updated codes to build up to 18 floors.
This is reported by trade association WoodWorks. more than 1,600 projects in the US were built or designed with solid wood, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, now has the world’s largest. At 25 stories high, the $80 million luxury high rise called Ascent opened last year with massive timber made from sustainable, fast-growing forests in Austria.
It may take generations to realize the effects, but by acting today and betting on the long term, mass timber can reduce 14%-31% of global CO2 emissions and 12%-19% of global fossil fuel consumption , according to a Study from 2014. And while it seems unattainable today, almost 8 billion tons of CO2 emissions could be cut down by 2050 if 90% of new urban buildings were built with solid wood.
The future of carbon negative concrete
Massive wood doesn’t fit every application, such as highway overpasses, so improving the way concrete is made is an important endeavor. Concrete is one of the most commonly used materials in construction because of its strength and durability; however, producing concrete is incredibly energy intensive and releases large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Thanks in large part to the energy and resources required to convert clay and limestone into cement, the binder in traditional concrete, scientists estimate that global concrete production contributes as much as 8% of global CO2 emissions.
With an additional 2 trillion square feet of new building space expected by 2060, it’s time to use better concrete. Researchers have developed new forms of concrete that absorb more CO2 than they emit during production – what is known as “carbon negative” concrete – often by replacing traditional cement with an alternative such as bioengineered components. Innovative researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder say they have the tools and technology to do this save two gigatons of CO2 is released annually and permanently sequesters more than 250 million additional tonnes in bioengineered concrete. They are cultivating calcareous microalgae — such as those that produce coral reefs — for use in biogenic limestone, which could ultimately eliminate the need for destructive limestone mining and the emissions of firing and pulverizing it into cement.
Fly ash (a byproduct of coal-fired power plants) is another cement substitute, and crushed recycled glass or steel slag (a waste byproduct of steel production) replaces sand or gravel as aggregate in concrete, all of which reduce the impact of material creation and harmful waste sent to landfills is being sent. Innovators such as Blue Planet and CarbonCure are advancing these new technologies to extract CO2 from various waste products and permanently mineralize it so that it does not re-enter the atmosphere.
The changing tide
These advances are only superficial, but offer enormous potential to combat climate change. And after the unusually rapid pharmaceutical research and approvals that have curbed the effects of Covid, construction industry leaders and regulators should consider quickly adopting these and other sustainable technologies to counteract human impact on the environment.
The materials forged for construction today can last for centuries, even longer in some crumbling form. And with each passing year, we may miss the opportunity to get the maximum effect from new innovations. Making a speed to acceptance extremely important.
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