The Circularity and Embodied Carbon Savings Potential of Mass Timber
Research Poster Arts & Humanities 2025 Graduate ExhibitionPresentation by Luke Gochis
Exhibition Number 205
Abstract
The building sector is one of the largest contributors to global warming, contributing 40% of CO2 emissions globally. Additionally, in the US, 32.4 million tons of wood waste is produced each year. In the recent decade, mass timber building assemblies have grown in popularity due to their low carbon footprint and ease of assembly. The modular configuration of mass timber makes it an ideal method in a circular economy (CE). A circular economy keeps stock of a building’s materials to be reused and ultimately reduces excess waste created from the existing linear economy of buildings. In a Mass timber assembly, floor and wall paneling methods vary, with the most common method being cross-laminated timber (CLT). CLT is fabricated by stacking timber planks crosswise 90 degrees and are glued together. A less common method, dowel laminated timber (DLT), uses no adhesives in fabrication, but instead are stacked on their edge and are hydraulically pressed together by softwood dowels. With circular economy and mass timber construction being more popularized in the recent decade, both the circularity of mass timber and the evidence of the most efficient mass timber paneling method is not well documented. This thesis focuses on the circularity of mass timber, by finding out how and to what extent mass timber structures can be more easily designed for disassembly - specifically, DLT floor paneling - in order to increase mass timber structures’ circularity and help reduce excess waste and carbon emissions.
Importance
The expected result of comparing these two methods would indicate that mass timber assemblies of one floor panel method both have a lower carbon footprint and better circularity potential than mass timber assemblies using the other panel type. The following results indicate that one of floor panels methods would be the more effective for a sustainable design, and the construction industry should prioritize optimal building solutions with designing for disassembly in mind.