Sweden's Wooden Skyscraper Capturs As Much CO2 As 10,000 Forests

Between the towering trees of Sweden's Bothnian coastline, a new skyscraper is bucking the trend of the traditionally carbon-heavy construction industry, Ben Anthony Horton reported for Euronews.Green.

Photo Insert: The Sara Cultural Center in Sweden

The 20-storey, 75-meter-high Sara Cultural Centre - named after a popular Swedish author - opened its doors last September. It’s yet another wooden structure to adorn the streets of Skelleftea - a city that is tackling the climate crisis one new build at a time.

“Everyone thought that we were a little bit crazy proposing a building like this in timber,” says Robert Schmitz, the architect behind the construction.“But we were quite pragmatic, so we said that if you can't make everything in timber, then we can at least do some of it that way. But during the design process, we all came out and said that it's more efficient to build everything in timber."

The cultural center is home to six theatre stages, a library, two art galleries, a conference center, and a 205-room hotel. It’s all built from over 12,000 cubic meters of wood - harvested from forests just 60 kilometers from the town.

The design is part of a wider effort in Skelleftea to wean the local construction industry off environmentally-harmful materials.

According to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), building work was responsible for over 38 percent of global energy-related carbon emissions in 2015 alone.

The production of cement, meanwhile, is the largest single industrial emitter of CO2 in the world. By contrast, wood sequesters carbon dioxide, binding it from the atmosphere and storing it for good.

Those behind the Sara Cultural Center - the second tallest wooden tower in the world - claim the skyscraper will capture nine million kilograms of carbon dioxide throughout its lifetime.

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