A lot of new construction made of wood could avoid more than 100 gigatonnes of CO2

Berlin Steel, plaster, concrete: In the 1920s, the Bauhaus art school in Weimar used these materials to establish an architectural style that soon became the flagship for modern living – in Germany and around the world. The designers disparaged the building material wood, it only disturbed the chic industrial look.

Today, around 100 years later in the midst of the climate crisis, a new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) comes to the following conclusion: More living in new buildings made of wood instead of steel and concrete could avoid more than 100 gigatonnes of CO2 by the year 2100.

For this, 90 percent of the new urban population would have to be accommodated in such newly built wooden houses. The avoided greenhouse gases correspond to an amount that mankind currently causes in two years.