NSW forest industries welcome the Clean Energy Finance Corporation’s (CEFC) $300 million Timber Building Program announced today that will turbocharge a new era of green buildings in Australia using low-emission engineered timber construction, Australian Forest Products Association NSW CEO Victor Violante said.

“Timber is the ultimate renewable, and the CEFC’s new program recognises that using engineered timber to substitute more energy-intensive building materials is a great way to decarbonise buildings in the drive towards net-zero emissions,” Mr Violante said.

“It is terrific that the Federal Government is backing forest industry jobs and innovative timber construction to reduce the carbon footprint in construction,” Mr Violante said.

“This announcement complements the NSW Government’s announcement last year to take into account a development’s carbon footprint under a new green building rating system, and has the potential to position timber as the low-emission building material for the 21st century.

“NSW has already been leading the way in building with engineered timber, with several impressive examples in Sydney of what is possible.”

Mr Violante said the announcement was the culmination of years of work by forest industries and leaders in green construction to highlight the significant emissions-reduction and aesthetic benefits of building with engineered timber.

“CEFC’s research released last year shows that replacing 50 per cent of a building’s traditional steel and concrete materials with engineered timber reduces embodied carbon by 11 per cent. In some cases, it’s possible to replace 60 per cent of steel with engineered wood in new buildings.

The benefits will be even greater if we source the timber locally. It will not only reduce the ‘carbon miles’ and embodied energy of construction, it will also drive new manufacturing jobs in the regions and support the necessary growth of our existing timber plantation estate, which already replants tens of millions of trees every year in NSW.”

Mr Violante said industry is working with the NSW and Federal governments to grow NSW’s plantation estate to ensure we have the resource we need to meet our future timber needs.

For interviews contact Victor Violante on 0421 846 201