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Swapping concrete, steel with mass timber creates a 12% to 25% drop in building emissions

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Mass timber has huge potential when it comes to reducing the carbon footprints of buildings, and Canada is well-positioned to become a world leader in the space, according to a new report from Royal Bank of Canada.

The report, released Oct. 27 by the RBC Climate Action Institute, part of the bank’s thought leadership department, notes that while mass timber has a much lower emissions profile than concrete or steel, it still only makes up one per cent of the North American construction sector.

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“Concrete and steel’s emissions (profiles are) six and five times greater than wood, respectively,” the report said, noting that concrete, steel and aluminum in buildings alone contributed six per cent of Canada’s total greenhouse gas emissions in 2022.

If developers were to swap concrete and steel with mass timber, there would be a 12 per cent to 25 per cent drop in building emissions, the report found.

The building sector is Canada’s third most carbon-intensive industry. In 2022, it contributed 13 per cent of total emissions or 92 million metric tons of CO2e. Canada has set goals to reduce this to 53 million metric tons by 2030, on the way to achieving net zero by 2050.

The deployment of mass timber in new residential and commercial buildings — including apartments, condos and office towers — has the potential to help significantly.

So far, Canada has successfully completed 661 mass timber projects, with British Columbia and Quebec in the lead at 257 and 184 projects, respectively. Ontario follows in third with 90 timber projects.

British Columbia is a leader in mass timber due to policies such as 2009’s Wood First Act, mandating the use of wood in publicly funded buildings. It has also allowed the construction of six-storey wood-frame residential buildings and adopted the 2020 National Building Code for 12-storey mass timber buildings. The province’s approach aligns with European countries such as Austria, Germany, Sweden and Finland, which have removed wood-related building code restrictions and provided support to builders and developers.

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Aside from emission-reduction benefits, the increased use of mass timber could also boost the market for the wood products needed by at least $1 billion by 2030.

Some key issues, however, would need to be addressed.

“Insurance underwriting has emerged as the most difficult challenge for both building construction and occupancy insurance,” the report said. “Presently, each building requires a bespoke policy, which significantly adds to a project’s final cost, and is ultimately passed down to the end buyer.”

Patrick Chouinard, the founder of Element5, a timber development company, pointed out that B.C.’s early adoption has resulted in a manufacturing base primarily in Western Canada, despite increasing demand in the rest of the country and northeastern United States.

Figures from Bird Construction show 62 per cent of capacity and 22 per cent of demand are situated in Western Canada, while Eastern Canada accounts for a substantial 78 per cent of demand.

Manufacturers also face hurdles in scaling operations due to the high cost of acquiring specialized mass timber machinery and technology, primarily produced by a few European manufacturers.

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“High cost of manufacturing equipment is also preventing new players from entering the mass timber business,” the report said. “The capital required to set up a manufacturing facility, with 50,000 m2 capacity, is estimated to cost $200 million, with the bulk of the costs attributable to machinery.”

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To address these challenges, RBC’s Climate Action Institute suggests standardizing insurance underwriting to reduce costs and continuing capital expenditure grants to bolster manufacturing capacity expansion.

• Email: shcampbell@postmedia.com


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