The Victoria Forest Products Association is calling on the Victorian Parliament to establish a State Government policy on Greening Construction with Sustainable Wood Products. Source: Timberbiz
In France, all new public buildings must be constructed with at least 50% of wood or other natural materials. This includes all buildings constructed for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
With timber-based design options currently representing less than 2% of mid to high-rise building construction projects in Australia, the VFPA says there is substantial opportunity to reduce embodied emissions through increased use of timber products in large scale buildings, and housing.
The VFPA says requiring new building projects to give preference to domestically produced sustainable timber products – a ‘wood first’ policy for housing in Victoria – could include preferencing structural engineered wood products (such as GLT) in multi-story construction, alongside other timber products – including in social housing.
The parliament should also consider introducing embodied carbon reduction requirements for government buildings and projects. To do this, government needs to endorse an agreed state framework to measure, verify and compare embodied carbon emissions in new building pro-jects, and major refurbishments.
The VFPA says this will be essential to allow building owners and investors to set robust and measurable targets for reducing embodied emissions in buildings.
