Timber is a natural and renewable resource, which offers both environmental and energy efficiency. It is also an appropriate construction method for the design of environmentally friendly housing in any climate.

In 2010 the Australian Government intends to place a limit on greenhouse gas pollution through the introduction of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

This scheme will change the relative prices of goods and services across the economy.  As a general principle, the prices of goods that are emissions intensive to produce will rise relative to those that are less emission intensive.

The good news is that plantation pine has a softer environmental footprint than steel or concrete in terms of embodied energy, air and water pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions.

Thus the impact of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme on the price of timber is expected to be minimal because compared to other materials, wood requires less energy to extract, process, transport, construct and maintain over time.

Research has found that the global-warming potential of a steel-framed home to be 26% higher than a timber-framed home.

The choice of material and design principles has a significant, but previously unrecognised, impact on energy required to construct a building.

For an average 4 bedroom house research shows that use of steel framing releases around 7 times more CO2 in production than a plantation pine frame.

*2003 CRC for Greenhouse Accounting

Every cubic metre of sawn timber used instead of other building materials saves around 2 tonnes of CO2.

Using wood in construction encourages forestry to expand, thereby increasing the carbon sink effect and reducing the rate at which CO2 builds up in the atmosphere, providing some mitigation for Climate Change.