Less steel, more wood could help New Zealand hit carbon targets

By Marty Verry, Red Stag Group
Stuff New Zealand
November 8, 2019
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: International

University and Scion research shows how New Zealand can achieve “zero carbon” in our third-biggest area of emissions, buildings. …Buildings cause GHG emissions in two ways; the embodied carbon from the extraction, manufacture and transport of the materials used, and the ongoing emissions from the energy used by the building. Nearly all electricity in New Zealand is from renewable sources so measurement of ongoing energy use, known as “Life Cycle Analysis”, is fairly irrelevant in terms of climate change. Don’t get me wrong, it’s always good to save power for economic reasons, but right now the biggest show in town is climate change. So when it comes to buildings and climate change, it is only the upfront embodied carbon in the materials that is relevant in New Zealand. Hands down the products that cause the most climate change damage are concrete and steel. 

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