By Ewald Rametsteiner, Deputy Director, Forestry Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

The world’s forests are vast carbon sinks, and one of humanity’s greatest assets in the fight against climate change. It can be counter-intuitive, then, to imagine that cutting down trees and using wood-based products can assist us in that same fight. But if wood-based products come from sustainably managed forests, using them can do just that. 

We could create a future in which cities are carbon neutral, acting as “second forests” for carbon storage.

A new publication released today for the International Day of Forests by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) explains how switching to wood-based products can help combat climate change and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Currently, around 75% of consumption is based on non-renewable natural resources. Extracting, processing, using, and disposing of these resources takes a serious toll on the environment, in particular the climate and biodiversity.

Wood, by contrast, is a renewable material. It also stores carbon for its lifetime. For example, a wooden kitchen table is keeping the carbon stored inside it safely locked away from the atmosphere.

Furthermore, using wood-based products can help to avoid or reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with products made from concrete, steel, plastics, and synthetic fibres.

The construction sector – which accounts for almost 40% of energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions – is a good example of where using wood can make a difference.

Wood materials such as cross-laminated timber have a low carbon footprint and are strong enough to build huge structures. The world’s tallest wooden building, Norway’s Mjøstårnet, stands more than 85 meters and 18 floors high. There is also evidence that wooden buildings lift people’s moods and increase productivity.

Countries are taking note:

• Gabon is planning the country’s first cross-laminated timber building, which has the potential to remove about 1.5 million kilograms of CO2 from the atmosphere – a weight equivalent to 36 Boeing 737-800s.
• The Netherlands has announced plans to build an entire Amsterdam suburb from wood.

Provided we replace the trees used in construction, we could create a future where cities would become carbon neutral, acting as “second forests” for carbon storage.

Wood-based products also offer solutions in other fields, including textiles, food, cosmetics, biochemicals, bioplastics, and medicine. Scientific innovations are pushing the boundaries of what we can do with wood and trees, from wound care to transparent wooden glass.

But there is a problem: pressure on all natural resources is rising, with rising demand for forest products from the construction, packaging, and bioenergy sectors.

Forests cover 31%of the Earth’s land area, or just over 4 billion hectares, but this immense natural patrimony is not enough to meet the increasing needs of the global population. At a global level forests continue to shrink, due largely to agricultural expansion.

To address this, we urgently need to increase forest area and promote more efficient and sustainable use of forest. This means, among other things, making sure we plant more trees as we harvest, carefully considering ecosystem integrity, and protecting forests through sustainable management. We need to step up the fight against deforestation, and restore deforested and degraded land, as called for by the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. We need investments in the sustainable management and restoration of forests to  improve the sustainable use of biodiversity and increase climate change mitigation and adaptation.

This means supporting forest-related institutions and players across the value chains, from production to processing to consumer, in ways that also maintain and create employment, value addition, and income, and benefit Indigenous Peoples, women, and youth. And we should encourage sustainable production and consumption of wood by recycling it, reducing waste, and enabling the “cascading” use of wood products – reusing them as many times as possible before finally burning them for energy. Consumers can play their part by choosing forest products with certification and labelling that attests to their legal and sustainable provenance.

Ways to drive concrete action on these strategies will be a focus of the upcoming UN report, The State of the World’s Forests, to be launched in May at the XV World Forestry Congress, the world’s largest gathering of forest experts and stakeholders interested in forestry.

We need to support the sustainable production and consumption of forest products – for people and for the planet.