The carbon reduction effect and carbon sink potential of the global wooden building transformation with the multi-sector impacts within the whole life cycle

Among the strategies for the low-carbon transformation of building system, the strategy of promoting the transformation of building structure to wooden building has received increasing attention due to reasons such as not reducing the satisfaction of building demands, exerting the carbon sink potential of buildings, and reducing the carbon emissions produced by building materials.

However, in the assessment of wooden building strategy, existing studies rarely consider the impact of wood supply constraints in different regions on the viability of wood buildings, the dynamics of forest carbon sinks under wood supply, the further carbon-reducing effects of wood recycling and diversion to sub-markets, impact of the wood transition in buildings on building performance, and the feedback effects of fluctuating prices of wood and other building materials on building structure change due to changes in production of those materials, which leaves a great deal of uncertainty in the assessment of how much effects the wood building transition strategy can have within the whole life cycle of the building system.

Based on this, this research attempts to establish a bottom-up model (IMED TEC) of the building system with an internal coupling of multi-sector material and energy flows. By doing so, we can simulate the nonlinear influence mechanism among the production of multiple energies and materials, and building services under cost-based decision-making. Furthermore, based on this model, we will attempt to couple it with the GLOBIOM. This will enable us to evaluate the impact of the demand for wooden materials in the building system transformation on global forest carbon sinks and land use. Additionally, we can assess the price of wooden materials under the corresponding supply and further feed this back into the building system model.

Our research will analyze the impacts of building systems transformation across multiple stages and sectors, as well as the dynamics of forest carbon sinks, in order to comprehensively assess the carbon-reducing and other impacts of wood building transformation strategy,