• Timber is virtually carbon neutral

• 83% of the wood used in the UK is sustainable - forests are not being lost or exploited

• In Europe, we grow more trees than we fell

• 1 tree removes around 1 tonne of CO2 in it's lifetime

• The world's forests store over 638bn tonnes of carbon

• A mature forest can store up to 1000 tonnes of CO2 in every hectare

• 1 hectare of mature woodland absorbs the carbon emissions of 100 cars every year

• UK forests store the carbon equivalent of the emissions of 3 million cars

• Scotland's forests currently capture around 15% of Scotland's CO2 emissions

• When a tree is felled it continues to store carbon

HOW MUCH CARBON IS STORED IN A TREE?

Based on Sitka spruce timber, the following comparisons show how much carbon we can store in wood to balance out the carbon emitted by energy usage:

• A 5 cm x 5 cm x 5 cm block of wood contains the same amount of carbon as would be emitted by boiling a kettle of water or driving a moped 1 km.
• One cubic metre of timber compares to two return flights to the Mediterranean or driving an HGV from London to Edinburgh.
• Six cubic metres of timber (i.e. a timber-framed house) is equivalent to driving an average petrol car for a year (11,000 miles).

These examples show how forestry can help mitigate climate change by storing the same amount of carbon in trees as is emitted through energy usage.

Source: FR News, March 2010