That’s a great topic, and I find the analogy with timber products troubling.
My understanding is the same as @pdoss-smith (and in part thanks to @jasonegrant’s Wood Forest and Embodied Carbon Webinar). I share the same skepticism, but the dogwood alliance and the Audubon articles didn’t really help me go from skepticism to grounded belief.
The Chatham report referenced by the Audubon article seemed clearer, and it seems to say in short that:
- most biomass practices ignore the full carbon impact, which ends up resulting in net emissions
- it is hard to regulate them because it is hard to properly assess the full carbon impact
- therefore the safest is to only allow burning biomass from waste (as Patrick mentioned)
Now, I am wondering what makes timber and mass timber different from Biomass burning, as timber eventually burns or decays and releases back the carbon stored (Item#3 might become using salvaged wood, or also byproducts). My understanding so far was: one can consider timber products as being carbon sinks or carbon neutral if they come from sustainably managed forests such as FSC-certified ones. Is that correct?
But, just as we can wonder how much of the biomass production is actually carbon neutral, how much of the wood production is FSC-certified or equivalent? Will/Can it ever happen that all timber will come from sustainably managed forests? And if it doesn’t, the question might become: how much better are timber products compared to other building materials?
Any help clarifying this hot topic is more than welcome.