Vol. 29 No. 1 (2025): BEYOND DECARBONIZATION toward a Climate Neutral urban environment
Essays and Viewpoint

Carbon storage and renewable materials: the trade-offs of the timber resource

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  • Elisa Zatta
Elisa Zatta
Dipartimento di Culture del Progetto, Università Iuav di Venezia, Italia
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/techne-16411

Published 2025-07-31

Keywords

  • Carbon storage,
  • City-territory system,
  • Engineered wood,
  • Renewable resources,
  • Mitigation strategies

How to Cite

Zatta, E. (2025). Carbon storage and renewable materials: the trade-offs of the timber resource. TECHNE - Journal of Technology for Architecture and Environment, 29(1), 118–126. https://doi.org/10.36253/techne-16411

Copyright (c) 2025 Elisa Zatta

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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Abstract

Timber is currently a trending topic in the debate concerning our built environment’s carbon neutrality, due to its renewable nature and the potential to store carbon. Nevertheless, this premise is sometimes inaccurately interpreted, as proven by the recently emerging concept of buildings becoming carbon sinks. The paper explores three fields in which misconceptions appear to be grounded, namely the inaccurate use of vocabulary about carbon storage in timber, the renewable-based assumption disregarding carbon transfer patterns and the finite nature of forests, and the competing market sectors relying on a resource with uncertain availability. By identifying existing and future trade-offs, the contribution points out how the carbon neutrality of urban areas cannot disregard the territory they extract resources from.

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