Net zero timber solutions
By Neil Sutherland, Founder and Director of MAKAR
“The central question of our age is how we can mitigate and defend against the worst effects of climate change. This question supersedes all others because unless we address it sincerely and meaningfully we simply won’t be around to address anything else”.
From - Ways of Being - by James Bridle
Despite all the glaring imperatives for reaching net zero carbon, and all the endless promises to do so – organisations, public and private, are still routinely commissioning and funding buildings constructed from steel, concrete and plastic. The opportunities to build with timber, with all the emissions reductions and other advantages that would entail, are going by the wayside. Our recent attempts to propose timber solutions to non-domestic projects in Highland and Moray Council areas have been resisted by their Building Standards Departments. These projects have been forced to abandon timber structures for steel. This behaviour is both suicidal, and completely unnecessary.
We now have confirmation that July was the hottest month on record. Wildfires raged across many regions and in Europe the direct links to climate change underpinned the devastation in Greece and Italy. The lies perpetrated by fossil fuel executives, with their corrupting discourse over decades, are now clear to all. Time is short, climate change is running away from us. We must change the way we build.
It is now over four years since the Scottish Government declared a Climate and Biodiversity Emergency. Policy intentions have emerged but far too slowly. Just Transition for example, suggests radical change, with justice and solidarity at its core. For Scotland this critical economic and workforce transition has to ditch fossil fuel extraction for an economy founded on regenerative carbon efficient skills, jobs and businesses. It is not enough to believe that a shift to renewable forms of energy production is the only radical shift required. In the built environment context, operational energy requirement is only half the story; embodied carbon or up-front carbon will continue to be the major hidden issue unless a Whole Life Carbon regulatory requirement is mandated for all new and refurbishment buildings.
In 2014, almost ten years ago, MAKAR, working with researchers at the University of East Anglia, undertook a Carbon Measurement study. A live project, four affordable houses designed, manufactured and delivered in the Highlands by the company formed the basis of the study. After preparing the mother of all spreadsheets, the headline outcome was that more carbon had been extracted and stored within the new homes than was generated in their delivery. These homes were carbon negative on delivery when carbon sequestration was taken into account. They were also delivered within exacting affordable housing cost benchmarks.
The project outlined was predicated on minimising steel, concrete and plastic, all high energy intensive materials. In their place, timber and natural materials were utilised wherever possible, many of which were sourced within 50 miles of the homes themselves. It is a deeply frustrating issue that in mindlessly continuing with conventional supply chain materials and methods, the Scottish or UK construction sector is not taking advantage of the very real tangible and joined up opportunities for driving forward with more appropriate alternatives.
Over the past 100 years, Scotland has transformed from being more or less treeless, to approaching 20% woodland cover. Further planned expansion could, in the coming decades, bring us up to the European average of 35% cover. With the multiple social, environmental, economic and carbon sink reality of trees comes a culture of use as well. Right now, however, the UK imports 80% of the 5 million cubic metres of softwood utilised in construction each year. It is the world’s second-largest importer of timber, per capita, after China and Japan.
MAKAR Commercial Buildings’ focus and methods reflect the technology and design-led integrated manufacturing process innovation developed over the past two decades. Our aim is to deliver a range of timber-based building types, including industrial workshops, warehouses, community buildings and offices.
In recent days, Sir Tom Hunter, Scotland’s most significant serial entrepreneur and philanthropist, has published, through his Foundation, the report - Lessons from Ireland for Scotland’s Economy. The report argues for and identifies a small number of sectors it believes, if singled out and supported with targeted investment, will lead to transformative economic growth. One of these is the Renewables and low carbon manufacture and services sector, which has to, in my view, include the Low Carbon Built Environment. After all, the places we construct are both pragmatic and symbolic of our lives and relationship to the world. A focus on this area of activity would lead to an acceleration in the delivery of a built environment appropriate for the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.
In my next Blog, I will dig deeper into the Innovation represented by an off-site Design for Manufacture and Assembly Sequence approach the two MAKAR organisations continue to employ and refine. I will also outline the steps being taken by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the steps they are taking to encourage governments in reaching near zero-emission and resilient buildings are the new normal by 2030.
Founder and Director of MAKAR.
You can explore a selection of MAKAR’s timber-based commercial and community buildings in our portfolio.
