Policies and standards for sustainable timber buildings

As part of a Built by Nature funded grant project, the Environmental Coalition on Standards (ECOS) is targeting its technical advocacy towards three standards, three policies, and the EU climate finance taxonomy with the goal to strengthen their timber components. The targeted legislations focus on construction products, the environmental performance of buildings, and carbon accounting methodologies and requirements.

This work focuses on removing regulatory barriers to timber, reducing the existing bias towards traditional materials in legislation, and facilitating investment into timber buildings through the integration of embodied carbon criteria in the EU’s sustainable finance taxonomy. In practice, ECOS attends key meetings and provides technical recommendations to policy-makers working on revisions. ECOS also reaches out to decision-makers at the European Parliament, organises roundtables with experts and policy-makers, and engages the wider sector on the topic. It also leverages Built by Nature’s networks to amplify policy conversations in various countries.

As part of this project, ECOS produced the report: How sustainable timber buildings can help fight the climate crisis