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VFPA welcomes federal investment in ‘ultimate renewable’ and forestry jobs

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Photo by Anders Vestergaard Jensen on Unsplash

The Victorian Forest Products Association (VFPA) welcomes the Clean Energy Finance Corporation’s (CEFC) $300 million Timber Building Program. The program will turbocharge a new era of green buildings using low emission engineered timber construction in Australia, VFPA Chief Executive Officer Deb Kerr said today.

“Timber is the ultimate renewable and low-emission building material for the 21st century, so it’s terrific the Federal Government through the CEFC is backing forest industry jobs and innovative timber construction to reduce the carbon footprint in construction,” Ms Kerr said.

“However, the federal and state governments must prioritise the use of Aussie timber. Otherwise, the carbon footprint of imported timber would cancel the good intentions of this initiative as we have seen for Melbourne’s new ANZAC train station that will use wood from overseas for its floating timber canopy!

“This commitment has the potential to drive the growth of Victoria’s thriving engineered timber manufacturing sector and our timber plantation estate, which already replants 15 million trees a year and needs to continue to grow over the next decade to meet Australia’s future timber needs.”

CEFC’s research released last year shows that replacing 50 per cent of a building’s traditional steel and concrete materials with engineered timber reduces embodied carbon by 11 per cent. In some cases, it’s possible to replace 60 per cent of steel with engineered wood in new buildings.

“Research shows that our plantation estate has not kept pace with Australia’s timber needs, while demand for renewable, sustainable products increases. We need federal and state government policies to deliver the 1 billion extra trees we need to build the low-emission buildings of tomorrow – with Australian wood,” Ms Kerr concluded.

ENDS

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