How Forests and Biogenic Carbon Can Convert Buildings into Carbon Sinks
Buildings and deforestation together produce 50% of global carbon emissions. This session will address how climate-smart forestry and sustainable agriculture can store carbon in ecological landscapes and generate wood and plant-based building materials that reduce embodied carbon in buildings. Key topics include a proposed strategy to double carbon sequestration by global forests, and an assessment of the validity of biogenic carbon claims with an expanded Life Cycle Analysis. We will also consider a case study focused on controlling tropical deforestation and producing negative carbon hardwoods.
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Marina 1
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Learning Objectives:
- Define the role of forests as both active agents of carbon capture and storage and as sources of emissions. Demonstrate how wood products sourced from well-managed forests can reduce a project’s embodied carbon.
- Provide an overview of available building materials sourced from forests and agriculture landscapes and compare their relative capacity to store carbon in buildings and to replace high-emissions materials.
- Evaluate the validity of the claims of negative carbon building materials, using the concept of a Life Cycle Analysis that includes evaluation of the carbon dynamics of the forest or cropland that sourced the material.
- Describe the large opportunity in tropical forestry to reduce global carbon emissions. Define the embodied carbon impact that wood products sourced from well-managed tropical forests can have on a building project.