Everyone in the timber sector agrees that a load-bearing timber structure holds carbon. Far fewer can say how much, for a specific building, in a form an auditor would accept. This Timber Development UK webinar is about that gap: how the carbon in a completed building is measured, what verification requires, and what has to be in place before the result can be sold on a carbon market. The first input comes from Andrew Cowan of One Click LCA, the second from Naim Solh, Carbon Project Developer at Timber Carbon.
From a claim to a figure
Measurement starts with the building itself: which species, what volumes, where in the structure, and how the wood was sourced. From that record a removal can be quantified and put to an accredited body for verification. Without it, the climate benefit of a timber building stays a statement in a brochure, which is why so much of the work sits in documentation rather than in engineering.
Why the market matters for the project
Once a removal is verified it can be issued as credits, and credits have a price. That price flows back into the project and changes the business case for building in timber, which in a close decision can tip it. Timber Carbon has been the leading Swiss carbon developer for the real estate sector since 2021 and does exactly this work: quantifying the carbon locked into a load-bearing structure, having the removal verified under internationally recognised standards, and issuing Timber Carbon Credits for it.
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