Increasing Carbon Sequestration, Land Use Efficiency, and Building Decarbonization with Short Rotation <i>Eucalyptus</i>

Global construction activity remains the least responsive large economic sector to the exigencies of global climate change. Focus has centered on operating emissions of buildings, while upfront embodied emissions in building materials remain unabated. Two of the most used building materials, steel and concrete, together produce more than 14 percent of total annual greenhouse gas emissions [1]. In contrast, softwood timber, another commonly used building material, can remove and store atmospheric carbon in buildings for decades. However, the upfront climate benefits of using structural-grade softwoods in durable building frames are limited due to the multi-decadal growth and harvest cycles. Here, we compare the use of fast-growing Brazilian Eucalyptus to a group of commonly used North American softwoods (spruce, pine, and fir) in a three-stage climate risk model that results in a novel Carbon Benefit Multiple, which quantifies the relative carbon removal benefits in a risk adjusted framework. The analysis shows that short rotation, high yield Eucalyptus is 2.7x to 4.6x better at removing atmospheric carbon than softwoods depending on various risk perception scenarios. The analysis indicates that building decarbonization can benefit by using fast growing and high yielding Eucalyptus species compared to traditionally used softwood species.