As the building sector contributes up to 40% of global annual greenhouse gas emissions, it plays a vital role in combatting climate change (1). Wood construction is a part of the solution. Designing Kerto® LVL, birch plywood, spruce plywood and Finnjoist products for long service life ensures long carbon storage times. Reuse and recycling ensure prolonged carbon storage.  

Production of Metsä Wood products creates also fossil greenhouse gases. Main sources of emissions when producing Metsä Wood products comes from production site, raw materials and logistics. Metsä Wood aims to decrease its fossil climate impact and we have a target of Fossil free mills by 2030. You can read more about our targets on reducing our climate impact on Wood 2030 Targets -page. 

The Product Climate Impact calculator calculates the average fossil emissions (GWP-fossil) and carbon storage in different Metsä Wood products by volume and helps our customers and designers make more sustainable choices for building products. The calculator is based on Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) for Metsä Wood’s products.  

(1) IRP, Resource Efficiency and Climate Change, 2020, and UN Environment Emissions Gap Report 2019

For example, producing 5 m³ of Kerto LVL S-beams (A1-A3) emits 1,4 tn  CO₂eq. and for the full life cycle of the building, 5 m³ of Kerto LVL S-beams store an amount of carbon that corresponds to 3,7 tn of CO₂.   

Carbon cycle

The stored carbon originates from the atmosphere as trees absorb CO₂ and water to produce carbohydrates by utilizing the energy from sunlight. These carbohydrates are part of the tree structure in which the carbon stays stored. As long as the wood product is in use, carbon stays stored. Reuse and recycling ensure prolonged carbon storage. Once the material is disposed, biogenic carbon is released back to the atmosphere. The released carbon is again absorbed by trees from in the form of CO₂ and used to produce new carbohydrates. 

The unit for carbon storage is CO₂ equivalent (CO₂ eq.). This unit means that the amount of carbon is changed to corresponding amount of CO₂.  If a product stores carbon 1000 kg CO₂ eq. it is the same amount of carbon as in 1000 kg of carbon dioxide.