Future opportunities for British timber

Timber has been used in Britain for thousands of years as a building material and it is increasingly important as the challenges of low carbon building develop further.

Harvested timber is feedstock for a number of industries, with the majority going into sawmills. The remainder is used in panel board, pulp/paper, fencing, biomass and other products.

This research summary - a collaborative effort funded by the Forestry Commission and carried out by a number of different partners including TRADA Technology Ltd - was split into three sections which aim to:

• Analyse and make recommendations of the most effective ways to add value to home grown timber used in construction.
• Conduct a study into the main timber species grown in the UK and identify further research required to fully understand the properties of our main timber species.
• Develop a consistent methodology for calculating the life cycle analysis of wood and timber products that is both cost effective and can be universally applied with minimal training.

Contents:

• Rationale
• Research summary
• FC1 and FC3 (Adding value and UK timber species) Overview
• Existing market and trends in construction products
• Options for adding value and best utilisation for timber species
• Product propositions
• Carbon storage and embodied carbon in construction products
• Profit assessments
• End of life scenarios
• Stakeholder engagement
• Conclusions and recommendations
• Opportunities for best utilisation of species were found to be:
• FC1 recommendations:
• FC3 recommendations:
• FC2 - Development of methodology for carbon footprinting for British timber
• Challenges faced by previous approaches to GHG emissions assessment
• Expected future developments