Potential cascading of wood from the built environment

The use of wood in construction has been promoted due to the renewability, and carbon storage potential of wood and the instability of supply of fossil resources. However, if wood resources (e.g. forests, wood products, second-life wood) were used irresponsibly, the increasing use of wood could hamper the supply of it from the forest to market. One way to tackle this issue is to use wood in efficient and sustainable manner. Cascading of wood from buildings could contribute to it through prioritizing reuse and recycling of wood from buildings over energy recovery. It also contributes to climate change mitigation by storing carbon in wood building elements for long period of time. However, reuse and recycling of wood is not a common waste management practice at the moment. Many reasons range from outdated regulations to financial values hinder reuse and recycling of wood from buildings. Also, there is not a good understanding of wood that can be reused and recycled. My doctoral research under the title, ‘Potential cascading of wood from the built environment’ contributes to aforementioned research theme. The generous funding from Kone Foundation presented a valuable opportunity for me to further my doctoral studies. With their support, I continued my work on the topic and enhanced my expertise in circular economy and resource efficiency of building materials.

The goal of my doctoral dissertation was to develop a material stock and flow model that predicts the quantity of material vs. recoverable material from buildings, considering both the current demolition methods and following the implementation of design for disassembly. The financial support from the Kone Foundation has been instrumental in facilitating progress in my doctoral studies. So far, I have published a conference paper, a peer-reviewed journal, and a dataset. Furthermore, the experimental phase of a separate study was concluded within the duration of the funding period.