The biggest new idea in sustainable building is also one of the oldest construction materials around: timber. But this isn’t ordinary wood. Cross-laminated timber, as it’s known, is arguably the first major structural innovation since the invention of reinforced concrete more than 150 years ago.

Cross-laminated timber itself has been in use for decades, particularly in Austria and Germany. Interest in the material is surging along with concern about the greenhouse-gas emissions associated with concrete and steel. The production of construction materials such as steel, cement and glass accounts for 10% of global energy-related CO2 emissions, according to a United Nations report.

By contrast, cross-laminated timber and other engineered wood products can benefit the climate in three ways: trees capture and store carbon as they grow; long-lived wood products lock in carbon; and these products can be used instead of high-impact materials like concrete in many cases.

Crucially, these products – often referred to under the catch-all term “mass timber” – are strong enough to replace concrete and steel in many of the taller buildings going up in cities around the world. And they have inherent fire-resistant properties that allow their use on a commercial scale, according to Lisa Podesto, Senior Business Development Manager at Lendlease, a global real-estate and investment company that has built more than 20 cross-laminated timber structures.

“The beauty of this new product type – mass timber – is that it’s competing in a market space with materials that timber couldn’t compete with in prior building generations,” Podesto said during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum’s Sustainable Development Impact Summit 2021. “It’s opening opportunities to offset carbon in a different landscape.”

The carbon-reducing impact of green building with mass timber goes beyond the sustainable forests that produce these products and the carbon they lock away.

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