Category Archives: Wood, Paper & Green Building

Recent studies suggest that paper-based advertising may hold a more sustainable footprint than its digital counterpart. This revelation challenges the widely held assumption that ‘going paperless’ automatically equates to environmental responsibility. New data indicates that the full lifecycle impact of digital advertising – encompassing data centers, device manufacturing, and network infrastructure – generates a significantly larger carbon footprint than traditional print methods. The findings, originating from research conducted by the Öko-Institut in Germany and corroborated by analyses from The Telegraph, Emerce, and RetailTrends, highlight the often-overlooked environmental costs associated with the digital world. While paper production undeniably carries its own environmental burdens, advancements in sustainable forestry practices and paper recycling are mitigating these impacts. …Their findings consistently showed that paper-based advertising, particularly when utilizing recycled paper and responsible forestry practices, generated fewer greenhouse gas emissions than comparable digital campaigns. 

Mei architects and planners have completed SAWA, a 164-foot-tall residential building in Rotterdam’s Lloydkwartier district. Designed for Nice Developers and ERA Contour, the project is described by the team as “the healthiest building in the Netherlands,” constructed primarily from cross-laminated timber. The scheme is one of several mentioned in our recent feature article on the Dutch city. …SAWA is built largely from CLT, with concrete and steel kept to a minimum. According to the project team, more than 90% of the main load-bearing structure consists of wood. The use of CLT was intended to reduce carbon emissions, store CO2 within the building material and shorten construction time compared with traditional concrete construction.

Gary Raftery & Weixi Wang

Researchers at the University’s Structural Timber Innovation Laboratory are breaking ground with durability programmes to open new applications for low carbon cross-laminated timber in demanding outdoor environments. …However, its use is largely limited to indoor environments, and has only rarely been used in applications such as bridges, facades, outdoor pavilions, and other infrastructure. “Our research aims to change that,” says Dr Gary Raftery, a research director in the University’s Circular Innovations Research Centre. The team is conducting a series of long-term exposure trials using both outdoor and lab experiments that simulate extreme conditions. …Working with industry partners, the team is meticulously assessing adhesive and preservative systems to augment the performance of cross-laminated timber, while keeping sustainability front-of-mind. …Life-cycle analysis on end-of-life applications is also being conducted to assess environmental impacts.

Treetop living has long captured our imagination, in Johann David Wyss’s fictional tale of the shipwrecked Swiss Family Robinson (1812), who constructed a tree house on a desert island, and the Guingettes de Robinson that first appeared in 1848: arboreal dining experiences inspired by Wyss’s novel that had style-conscious Parisians ascending to thatched cabins in the trees. Today, the tree house has evolved into something new. “Since the late 1990s, architects have been rediscovering this ancient, seemingly whimsical typology – not for whimsy’s sake, but for sustainability, intimacy, and a renewed dialogue with nature,” writes Florian Seabeck in a new book, Modern Tree Houses, published by Taschen. The book showcases the creations of a new generation of environmentally-minded architects, whose contrasting approaches to treetop living are united by a shared desire to reconnect with the natural world. Here are 10 modern tree houses from the book.

©NZGBC

After a decade of talk and planning, the past year has seen a new building begin to rise behind Parliament to house a quarter of Parliament’s 120 MPs. It was originally conceived in 2014 …After the 2017 election, the project was put on hold …Finally, following the 2020 election, which saw NZ First out of Parliament, the project was resurrected. …it underwent significant changes as part of that process, project director Dave Wills says. …“The original design [from 2016] was concrete and steel …That was when we had the early decision in the re-kickoff of the project to go to New Zealand-grown and -sourced mass timber, structural timber systems,” Wakelin says. …the building is primarily made of gigantic frames of mass timber… While relying more heavily on the timber leads to far less climate pollution in its production than concrete or steel, using it for the structure of a building in this way comes with its own complications.

UK — Forestry and timber certification body PEFC has released The Timber Truth, a new publication that provides fact-based insights into some of the most persistent misconceptions surrounding timber construction. Written by Dr Pablo van der Lugt, a civil engineer and international advocate of biobased building — the book offers a concise, technically grounded overview of topics central to today’s timber debate: fire safety, structural performance, material availability, CO storage, sustainable forest management, and circular use of wood. …The Timber Truth aims to equip architects, engineers, developers, and policymakers with accurate information for decision-making in low-carbon and circular construction. The foreword is authored by UK architect Andrew Waugh, a pioneer in large-scale timber architecture. The publication draws on insights from thousands of participants in PEFC’s Tomorrows Timber Talks… to address knowledge gaps in timber construction and update them on the latest developments in wood and wood products.

The Council formally adopted a targeted revision of the EU regulation on deforestation-free products (EUDR), aimed at simplifying its implementation and ensuring that operators, traders and authorities are adequately prepared for its application. The revision streamlines the due diligence requirements and postpones the application of the regulation for all operators until 30 December 2026, with an extra six-month cushion for micro and small operators. This responds to concerns raised by member states and stakeholders regarding administrative burden and the readiness of the IT system necessary for the effective functioning of the EUDR, while fully preserving the regulation’s objectives of preventing deforestation and forest degradation linked to products placed on the EU market. To further reduce administrative burden, certain printed products (such as books, newspapers, printed pictures) were removed from the scope of the regulation, reflecting the limited deforestation risk associated with these items.

Additional coverage by Gordon Murray, Wood Pellet Association of Canada: WPAC discusses EUDR amendment

The smell of an old book … escapes as a cover is eased open or a stiff page lifted, settling briefly in the air between hand and paper. In libraries and second-hand shops, it is a faint but persistent smell… It is often associated with comfort and habit, yet it has a material basis. Conservators and chemists treat it as evidence of physical change. Paper, ink, glue, and binding age continuously, releasing compounds that remain present long after printing. What is sensed is the slow chemistry of use and storage. …Paper accounts for much of the smell associated with old books. From the nineteenth century onwards, most paper was produced from wood pulp containing cellulose fires and lignin. Over time, these components undergo chemical change. Cellulose chains fracture and shorten. Lignin oxidises and breaks into smaller fragments. These processes release volatile organic compounds that drift from the page surface.

UK – The Wood Recyclers’ Association (WRA) welcomed the publication of a new Regulatory Position Statement (RPS) in England specifically for waste wood, following successful calls from the WRA on behalf of the waste wood industry. RPS 361 allows sites which have been impacted by unplanned downtime at biomass plants, incinerators and panel board manufacturing facilities to apply to temporarily exceed their permitted storage limits. Importantly, the RPS applies to sites storing wood destined for panel board manufacture for the first time. …The RPS comes following ongoing pressure in the waste wood market, with many sites inundated with material – something the WRA has been in regular discussions with the regulators about across the four nations. Vicki Hughes. said “This RPS gives permitted sites storing waste wood in England the opportunity to apply for additional storage and help ensure this material is not sent to landfill or incineration.”

Japan — Plastic pollution has proven stubbornly resistant to quick fixes. Even so-called biodegradable plastics often linger in the environment, breaking down into microplastics that spread through ecosystems and bodies alike. Now, researchers in Japan say they have created a plant-based plastic that sidesteps that trap. The material stays strong during use, yet breaks down rapidly in natural settings without leaving microscopic debris behind. …Cellulose-based plastics already exist, but most do not decompose quickly in marine environments. …The new plastic builds on that earlier concept. One polymer comes from carboxymethyl cellulose, a wood-pulp derivative that is already FDA-approved and biodegradable. The second component proved harder to identify. After extensive testing, the team selected a safe crosslinking agent made from positively charged polyethylene-imine guanidinium ions.