Building With Wood Could be the Ultimate Carbon Capture
Name a carbon capture technology that is fully proven, used the world over, pumps out oxygen, and improves wellbeing at the same time? There’s only one answer: trees. As trees grow they feed on carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and trap it in the form of wood: as long as the wood exists, the carbon is captured and not released back into the atmosphere. This makes wood not just carbon neutral, but carbon negative, as a building material.
When I met the architect Andrew Waugh on assignment for the BBC, I was struck by the simplicity of the solution he is proposing. Waugh likes to build with wood. As a young architect he used to be, he admits, something of a show-off, with a penchant for fast cars and sexy designs. Now he drives an unassuming electric car (less Tesla, more hatchback) and builds functional, commercial tower blocks out of wood. The reason is climate change. He wants wood to replace concrete and steel as the world’s primary building material, and in so doing grow more forests, and sequester more carbon.
“The [carbon capture and storage] machines being created for locking carbon in and burying are not as efficient as trees”, he enthuses. “Just grow more trees!”
So, let’s take a step back. Can wood really compete with concrete and steel? How is Waugh able to build tower blocks out of wood…
