Is It Possible for Us to Reverse The Damage That's Already Been Done?

ELEANOR HALL: Let's hear now from the South Australian academic who is proposing a radical rethink of building construction in Australia in order to reduce the country's carbon footprint. Professor Steffen Lehmann proposes that instead of using steel and concrete Australia should use timber construction, including in high rise buildings. He outlines the concept in his new book "Designing for Zero Waste", and he spoke about it to Nance Haxton in Adelaide. STEFFEN LEHMANN: Apparently one tonne of concrete has produced one tonne of CO2 greenhouse gas emissions on the way before it gets really used on construction sites, and steel is of course and aluminium is very energy and carbon intensive. So we found that the traditional material of timber is actually, has a lot of advantages and it is possibly the material of the 21st century. It's back again in a form that's called cross laminated timber. These are panels, they are up to 16 metre long, and they've been used the last 10 years very successfully in Europe and we are working towards introducing, removing the barriers and introducing those timber panels to build urban in-fill projects for housing, for residential multi-storey buildings� NANCE HAXTON: So you can make multi-storey buildings with timber? STEFFEN LEHMANN: Yes, yes, you can build up to ten storeys, we just have to solve the fire issue at the moment, we're doing fire testing, we will change the building code therefore and hopefully in the next two years, we will see the first demonstration project here in Adelaide in the city centre with six, seven storey timber building where they replace steel and concrete with CLT - cross laminated timber panels, they are strong as steel but they are lightweight. And the wonderful thing is of course they store carbon, which means the first time in history we can actually do away with the negative impact of construction and we can store carbon in those buildings and turn buildings into what I call carbon sinks. Just imagine every building will store carbon and we don't have to demolish them after 30 years because with this construction system, the wonderful thing is it is very easy to change, to adapt those buildings and to be flexible. NANCE HAXTON: I suppose people might be surprised though to hear that timber could be more climate friendly given the concerns people have about the logging of old growth forests. STEFFEN LEHMANN: And that's very different - we are not logging trees in precious, pristine forests in Tasmania or rainforests in Malaysia or Indonesia - that of course is absolute no-no, the deforestation, we have to stop that. Trees do many, many wonderful things and that's why we have to keep planting them and not knocking them down but also building with sustainably harvested re-growth plantation timber for instance from Mount Gambier, the pine tree with the testing, can be used very well for CLT. NANCE HAXTON: Is it possible for us to reverse the damage that's already been done? STEFFEN LEHMANN: Well these are many, many small steps and sometimes maybe even a big step in-between. With the carbon tax coming in, it will get very interesting the way industry and manufacturing processes will have to change. The problem is the urgency. Nature has a clock that is ticking. We cannot see the clock, we don't know how much time is left but certainly there is an urgency. We should not procrastinate. ELEANOR HALL: A wonderfully enthusiastic Professor Steffen Lehmann speaking there to Nance Haxton. Source: abc.net.au