Decarbonising buildings: timber keeps its edge

Mineralisation comes at a price

The analysis is based on the study by Driver et al. (2024). Depending on the process, reductions range from 0.49 kilograms of CO₂ per kilogram of concrete to almost zero. The processes with the greatest potential cost up to 300 percent more than conventional products; only cement from carbonated end-of-life cement paste is relatively cheap, at a premium of 9 to 12 percent. In the medium term, cost-competitive decarbonisation of around 20 percent at product level seems realistic, in line with the major cement producers' targets for 2030. Other approaches exist, such as biogenic carbon locked in Klark concrete.

In the race to decarbonise the building sector, our society needs several solutions.

Timber and concrete in practice

Timber-concrete composite floors are now the state of the art in large multi-storey projects: the concrete handles sound and vibration, the timber the structural load. Newer large projects by pure timber builders increasingly use solid timber or box-section floors thanks to industrial modular construction, and lift and stair cores are already being built from cross-laminated timber. In 2024, the company Timbase built a timber basement for the first time. The aim in each case is to reduce emission-intensive concrete.

How Timber Carbon sees it

A more detailed version of this analysis appeared in Holzkurier in February 2025. Timber Carbon, launched in 2026 as a spin-off of Timber Finance, quantifies, certifies and monetises the carbon removed in mass timber buildings as carbon removal credits on the voluntary carbon market. Our Build biobased page explains how developers can get started.