Building a city of wood
24 January 2025
The alleged "largest mass timber project in the world" is in full swing on the outskirts of Stockholm, set to provide 2,000 new homes by 2027. "Stockholm Wood City," is mostly constructed using cross-laminated timber (CLT), which is made of layers of wooden panels engineered to be almost as strong as steel or concrete. Using this, the buildings are projected to have a significantly lower carbon footprint than those made out of concrete.
 | Jokin de Carlos Sola The building sector in Europe was responsible for 34% of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions in 2022, according to the European Environment Agency. While that isn’t nearly as much as it was in past years, it still leaves a lot of space to improve. In Sweden, 70% of which is forest, a law from 1903 makes reforestation compulsory. While Lena Dahl, a senior forest expert for WWF Sweden, told Time that she supports building with wood from sustainably managed forests over concrete, worries about biodiversity loss connected to forestry persist. In other places without such laws in place, forests and biodiversity would suffer far more, if an increasing amount of buildings are made mostly from wood. This includes more pressure on already strained forests across the world and the risk of increased emissions, according to the World Resources Institute. |
Welcome to The European Correspondent
Europe lacks true European media: in Germany alone, there are more media devoted exclusively to football than news outlets specialising on Europe. The established players mainly focus on Brussels and European institutions. The European Correspondent aims to change that. We cover the whole of Europe and write for a community of citizens who want to look beyond their own national borders. Without European journalism, there is no European civil society.
〉Read our manifesto
〉The stories we would like to write for you
Become a donor!
The European Correspondent is fully funded by its readers. We can only produce the newsletter with your support - and work towards the bigger project: building true European media. Donate now!
With your help, we can create true European journalism. Thank you!
We are non-profit. Every donated € goes directly into The European Correspondent.