EU backs timber products

The EU Environment Council to back sustainably-produced wood products as a “climate-friendly material” at the UN climate change convention in Copenhagen.

The Timber Trade Federation and ConFor worked with the European timber industry body to get the Council to move away from the “carbon accounting” position on wood adopted since 1997.

This ruled that when a tree is harvested, any carbon locked up in the timber is released back into the atmosphere, regardless of whether it is made into a product that lasted for decades.

The Council’s position is now that “harvested wood products” act as a carbon store for their lifetime and it says it will include them in the climate change agreeement”.