A new report published today by the Alliance for Sustainable Building Products highlights the challenges faced by developers in their attempts to reduce carbon emissions in new building projects.

The report, Mass Timber: Challenges and Potential Solutions, presents a summary of the research carried out through the ASBP’s Timber Accelerator Hub, a project initiated in response to the unfavourable market conditions that engineered wood products have been facing in recent years.

The report recommends a series of potential solutions that could unlock significant carbon savings through an increase in the use of mass timber; and urges developers and building designers to collaborate to define further design standards and common approaches to mitigating risk that could address insurer’s concerns.

The ASPB is calling on the government to work with industry to rapidly scale up fire testing programmes and provide clarity, following a string of divergent standards and policies released or drafted by the Greater London Authority, the British Standards Institute and the government itself that have fuelled negative perceptions around timber’s fire performance.

The report’s author Joe Giddings, said: “The urgent need to address the climate emergency combined with the necessity of adequately addressing fire safety concerns creates an imperative to act fast and demonstrate fire performance through testing, especially given the timescales involved in undertaking large-scale fire tests and creating appropriate standards and regulations.”

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