Comparing the environmental impacts of wooden buildings in Spain, Slovenia, and Germany

The environmental impacts of a wooden single-family model house were compared in different locations in Europe using Life Cycle Assessment. The chosen locations were Munich, Ljubljana, Portorož, Madrid, and Valencia. The main purpose was to analyze the existing barriers for designing a regenerative wood house and how those barriers change depending on the local conditions. The LCA results show that, despite the highly insulative building envelope, the use phase still contributes between 65% and 76% of the total carbon emissions over the complete life cycle of the house. Carbon emissions and the overall environmental impacts are higher in the locations with a colder climate, due to the energy used for heating. However, the electricity generation mix can sometimes overshadow those differences. Due to that influence, the carbon emissions in Munich are much higher than in Ljubljana despite having a similar energy consumption. The electricity mix effect is also observed when comparing the environmental impacts in Madrid and Portorož, where the CO2 emissions are slightly higher in Madrid despite its lower energy consumption. These results demonstrate the need for taking measures to overcome the impacts that are not possible to elimin–ate by passively isolating the house

Environmental and economic assessment of using wood to meet Paris Agreement greenhouse gas emission reductions in Slovenia

More than one hundred ninety nations, including the European Union, have signed the Paris Agreement to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. Meeting these conditions requires a steep decline in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by the year 2030 and zero GHG emissions by 2050. In this study, we investigated the role that wood products can play within Slovenia to reach the 2030 goal of a 55 % reduction in GHG, as compared to 1990 levels. Slovenia, with over 58 % forest cover, is well-positioned to utilize wood products to meet these climate goals. However, questions exist on how increased tree harvesting and local production, and the use of wood products contribute to replacing fossil-based materials and to lower lowering GHG emissions. To better understand the importance of wood products to GHG emission reduction, this study aimed to present a model showing how the forest-based value chain (including construction) could help reach the Paris Agreement goals. We investigated the associated environmental impacts and their related economic costs. The results indicated that Slovenia could reach the 55 % GHG emission reduction goal within 2030 through increasing tree harvesting and using these resources to increase the number of durable wood products produced within Slovenia that store carbon for long periods and substitute for other high GHG emitting materials. However, realizing these potential reductions would rely on the building industry within Slovenia to replace fossil- and mineral-based materials with wood products

Wood properties characterisation of thermo-hydro mechanical treated plantation and native tasmanian timber species

Thermo-hydro mechanical (THM) treatments and thermo-treatments are used to improve the properties of wood species and enhance their uses without the application of chemicals. This work investigates and compares the effects of THM treatments on three timber species from Tasmania, Australia; plantation fibre-grown shining gum (Eucalyptus nitens H. Deane and Maiden), plantation saw-log radiata pine (Pinus radiata D. Don) and native-grown saw-log timber of the common name Tasmanian oak (which can be any of E. regnans F. Muell, E. obliqua L’Hér and E. delegatensis L’Hér). Thin lamellae were compressed by means of THM treatment from 8 mm to a target final thickness of 5 mm to investigate the suitability for using THM-treated lamellas in engineered wood products. The springback, mass loss, set-recovery after soaking, dimensional changes, mechanical properties, and Brinell hardness were used to evaluate the effects of the treatment on the properties of the species. The results show a marked increase in density for all three species, with the largest increase presented by E. nitens (+53%) and the smallest by Tasmanian oak (+41%). E. nitens displayed improvements both in stiffness and strength, while stiffness decreased in P. radiata samples and strength in Tasmanian oak samples. E. nitens also displayed the largest improvement in hardness (+94%) with respect to untreated samples. P. radiata presented the largest springback whilst having the least mass loss. E. nitens and Tasmanian oak showed similar dimensional changes, whilst P. radiata timber had the largest thickness swelling and set-recovery due to the high water absorption (99%). This study reported the effects of THM treatments in less-known and commercially important timber species, demonstrating that the wood properties of a fibre-grown timber can be improved through the treatments, potentially increasing the utilisation of E. nitens for structural and higher quality timber applications