Timber-rich homes provide a catalyst for housing regeneration in Scotland. We need more homes—if they are built from local timber and timber products, they can also help us tackle the climate crisis.

Name: MAKAR Ltd
Price range: $

The Scottish Government has recently announced a housing emergency, and many regional councils have followed suit. This measure, the seeming result of panic on the part of a range of interests, has prompted almost daily media coverage. One such interview began with the assumption that with development being inherently bad for the environment; how could building more homes square with the climate and nature emergency?

In many respects, the negative assumption relating to construction is correct. In Europe, 40% of global warming potential emissions are generated directly or indirectly by the built environment. It has been estimated, for example, that the average UK home contributes 8.1 metric tonnes of CO2 per annum through the dependency on gas for space heating and grid electricity. In Scotland, the electricity grid is largely decarbonised due to the combination of hydro and on-shore and off-shore wind generation. Pretty much every time the media mention the reduction in GHG emissions, default assumptions and focus turn to power generation. This is, however, only half of the emissions story.

Upfront carbon

Every average new house completed in the UK contributes 35 to 50 metric tonnes of CO2 due to its ‘upfront’ emissions relating to the materials employed and their resulting industrial processes. Steel, concrete and plastics are high embodied carbon materials with resulting high emission contributions. Due to the limited supply chain options in this country, our average run-of-the-mill volume built speculative house is full of these materials. Scotland differs from the other devolved nations, however, in our uptake of timber panel as a construction type. On the face of it, this is positive as the structure holding the building up is timber-derived instead of concrete block. Nonetheless, when compared with all the other materials utilised, from PVC windows to concrete roof tiles, the timber portion is disappointingly restricted.

The Life Cycle Assessment of our homes recognises the inherent combined embodied and operational carbon content, and until we see this whole picture, we are unlikely to address any realistic point of view fully.

Perhaps interviewers should ask a different question — how can we utilise the dire need for new homes across the country while making a tangible contribution to climate action?

We believe there is a joined-up solution waiting to happen which when enacted will have multiple benefits, making a difference to people’s lives and to the planet. It involves a big plan, a large nature-based engineering initiative, transformative by its nature, ripe for Scotland at this time.

We might refer to this as Scotland’s Natural Carbon Pump, and it works like this: if we have any chance of avoiding existential climate breakdown, we need to capture atmospheric carbon, by either natural or engineered approaches, and do it fast. Natural options include restoration of peat bogs, increasing soil carbon and afforestation. Engineered solutions include carbon capture & storage and wood in construction. In viewing these natural and engineering possibilities, the cost and likely scale require consideration.

We are clear that linking afforestation with wood in construction is a combined solution entirely suited to Scotland’s circumstances, a powerful win-win. Scotland has ²⁄₃ of the UK’s standing timber resource, together with woodland expansion policy ambition, and we desperately need new homes — timber-rich homes, that is. These are homes delivered not only with timber structures but also with timber-based insulation, windows, cladding, and internal finishes, which have been shown to have immediate benefits.

A study MAKAR carried out indicated the relative up-front embodied carbon of a four person two bed home to be around 26 tonnes, around half that of the average new UK home. Amazingly, such a progressive local timber-derived home was able to lock up 38 metric tonnes of sequestrated carbon; the new home, when completed, took down 12 tonnes of carbon and stored it. The full picture ongoing emissions and therefore running costs of the home are also startling; spread over a year this is around £5 / week, £260 / year of non-fossil derived energy input for comfort.

Support for this radical shift from oil-age to timber-age thinking and doing has emerged from an unlikely quarter – the Planning System.

In facing the climate and nature emergency, it is widely accepted that collaboration, fresh creative partnerships and new approaches are necessary. Encouragingly, Scotland’s planning system has anticipated both these emergencies and the homes crisis. National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4), adopted just over a year ago, effectively sweeps aside often outdated regional development plans, immediately superseding these in law with new national priorities. Front and centre is an urgent response to the climate and nature challenge by way of 6 clear outcomes:

Meeting the housing needs of people

Improving the health and wellbeing of people

Increasing the population in rural areas

Improving equality and eliminating discrimination

Meeting targets relating to the reduction of emissions

Securing positive effects for biodiversity

The often-maligned planning system may appear to be an unlikely actor in this ongoing drama. NPF4 has been strategically aligned with an array of Scottish Government policies to become the vehicle which directly addresses climate change and how as a nation we have to respond now and in the coming years. As a positive, aspirational, and greatly influential policy with an overriding sustainable agenda, when utilised in full NPF4 must be the catalyst needed to drive economic, environmental, and social regeneration.

We are finding that the shift in Circular Economy and Just Transition influenced policy has been so radical that planners themselves have been caught out, basing current decisions on has-been policy. The fledgling signs that NPF4 is filtering through are, however, with us. This is both hopeful and can be done.

Timber-rich, energy-efficient, healthy and inspiring homes can be the foundation of Scotland’s natural carbon pump, a catalyst for housing regeneration and a way out of our current housing emergency.

Would you like your next home to be a net-zero, energy-efficient, healthy and inspiring place to live?