Wood-based policies as a driver for the climate transition

Abstract In the context of global accelerating urbanization, the total floor area of buildings is expected to double by 2060, with a significant impact on the environment. While cities made consistent progress towards increasing energy efficiency, accounting for, and reducing embodied emissions for new and renovated constructions represents one critical priority for mitigating this impact and reaching genuine carbon neutrality. Wood is a renewable and carbon-positive material, which can have a meaningful contribution to changing paradigms on net-zero carbon ambitions of cities, but still faces the challenge of an immature integration into urban development policy framework. Through the Horizon 2020 “Build-in-Wood” project we addressed the challenge of translating novel wood building systems, pilots, wood value chains for the construction of multi-storey wood buildings, and promising practices into policy. As a result, we formulate transferable lessons learned, recommendations, and criteria that can serve as guidance for municipalities and policymakers who aim to channel their efforts toward creating a more sustainable built environment by prioritizing wood, either implicitly or explicitly. We achieved this by working on understanding the real needs of cities and territories, the drivers, and the key entry points and preconditions for new policies supporting multi-storey wood buildings and genuine carbon neutrality. Specifically, the findings are based on the close collaboration with seven affiliated cities (Early Adopter Cities in Europe), outlining and integrating the results of (i)Multi-criterial urban planning, strategic and regulatory context analysis, (ii)Participatory and co-design approaches implemented with their local stakeholder ecosystem from the wood construction value chains and (iii)Research of different best practice policies at national, regional and local level from different parts of the globe, that incentives through informative, financial, research or regulatory instruments building with wood. The entire process is presented in the form of a Build-in-Wood Policy Catalogue [1], offering insights on working with Early Adopter Cities and guidance for improving policy, governance, and the decision-making process for subnational governments. The research was not intended to be exhaustive in documenting all existing policies because of the field’s dynamics, but rather to provide an overview and understanding of different policy instruments’ applicability and potential impact.