UK Parliament’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on Forestry and Tree Planting

On 24th February Paul Brannen, Head of Public Affairs for EOS and CEI-Bois, spoke at a meeting of the UK Parliament’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on Forestry and Tree Planting. Paul’s contribution was focused on ‘Using more wood: big opportunities & bigger rewards’. You can watch his full contribution here: Why the UK must use more wood

Paul began by highlighting the need to house the world’s growing population and the danger to the climate of continuing to build predominately using the carbon intensive materials of concrete, steel, brick and block. Wood is the only building material that can substitute for these materials and it has the additional advantage of storing carbon. The full potential of the built environment to store carbon is only beginning to be realised. Yes, new build in wood stores carbon but so too can renovating and retrofitting our existing buildings – not to mention the carbon that is already stored in the built environment. Interestingly we do not currently have any figures on what might be the total potential of the European built environment to store carbon – is it not time we had these figures?

Paul also briefed the meeting on President von der Leyen’s support for building in wood and her emerging Bauhaus initiative, see: https://europa.eu/new-european-bauhaus/index_en

In addition he gave a brief overview on how the Finnish government intends to limit values for the carbon footprint of larger new builds and he concluded by outlining plans for a global wood presence at the UN climate change talks in Glasgow, Scotland in November of this year. Paul’s final point was to encourage people to think about the 3S framework. Sequestration of carbon by trees (plant more!) the storage of carbon in timber (new build and renovation) and the substitution of carbon intensive materials resulting for an increased use of timber especially in construction.

Further information on the meeting can be found here: Wood use on agenda for APPG meeting (confor.org.uk)

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