122. Recalls the potential of wood for replacing the most carbon-intensive materials, inter alia in the construction sector, and calls for a clear hierarchy of use of sustainably harvested wood to be established, so as to ensure consistency with climate as well as resource-efficiency objectives; considers that sustainable bioenergy can be sourced from waste, certain residues and industrial byproducts, provided sufficient safeguards are set against loss of soil carbon and biodiversity as well as indirect emissions due to displacement of other uses of the same material;

120. Recalls the potential of wood for replacing the most carbon-intensive materials, inter alia in the construction sector, and calls for a clear hierarchy of use of sustainably harvested wood to be established, so as to ensure consistency with climate as well as resource-efficiency objectives; considers that sustainable bioenergy can be sourced from waste, certain residues and industrial byproducts, provided sufficient safeguards are set against loss of soil carbon and biodiversity as well as indirect emissions due to displacement of other uses of the same material;

123. Recalls that construction has a big ecological footprint, as it consumes large quantities of non-renewable natural resources and energy and is responsible for substantial carbon dioxide emissions; recalls that the use of renewable building materials reduces the consumption of natural resources and environmental damage; urges the Commission, therefore, to take better account of the low-emission character and energy efficiency of building materials over the whole of their life cycle, and to promote the use of ecologically sustain ...[+++]able, renewable and low-emission materials such as wood in construction; recalls that wood binds carbon as it grows, so that it is a carbon-neutral material;

119. Notes that, based on its life-cycle attributes, wood is a “greener” choice in construction than steel and concrete, since it locks up carbon dioxide and requires much less energy to produce than alternatives, and its by-products can be used to produce renewable energy; notes further that using wood as a construction material would help to take carbon emissions out of the carbon cycle permanently and would replace energy-intensive materials such as concrete;

Several transformative technologies have been identified in our technology road map to achieve this, including post-combustion capture, which is the capturing of carbon dioxide from flue gases using an absorbing material to selectively absorb the CO. The relatively pure CO is later released from the absorbing material when the material is heated.

I will spend a little bit of time talking about carbon because specifying carbon and carbon footprint, in our view, is the primary tool in advancing a wood first culture and creating a public awareness of its many benefits.