Global wood harvest is sufficient for climate-friendly transitions to timber cities
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Yayla, Alperen
Mason, Adam R
Wang, Junyang
van Ewijk, Stijn
Myers, Rupert J
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Decarbonizing the economy requires a large-scale transition from fossil carbon-containing feedstocks to minerals and biomass, notably wood in buildings. Increasing harvesting is under discussion to meet the supply of wood for ‘timber cities’, with potentially negative impacts on forests and biodiversity. Here we investigate pathways to timber cities, including their impacts on land use, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions by quantifying global and regional wood cycles using Bayesian material flow analysis. We show that shifting wood fuel to industrial use and maximizing circular use of wood can make timber cities possible with the current harvest volume. Our results reveal that these pathways have better environmental performance than increased harvesting, reducing total CO2 equivalent emissions by 2100 by 40.8 Gt compared to business as usual. To achieve the wood transition, regional and cross-sectoral governance and planning are needed, addressing national-level pathways and inter-regional wood transport. The most critical actions are reducing the use of virgin wood as fuel by promoting cleaner alternatives, and using wood waste more effectively globally, rather than expanding plantation forests.
Date Issued
2025-09-01
Date Acceptance
2025-06-24
Citation
Nature Sustainability, 2025, 8 (9), pp.1013-1025
ISSN
2398-9629
Publisher
Nature Research
Start Page
1013
End Page
1025
Journal / Book Title
Nature Sustainability
Volume
8
Issue
9
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2025 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Identifier
10.1038/s41893-025-01605-w
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2025-07-30