Exploring the regional-scale potential of the use of wood products in non-residential buildings: A building permits-based quantitative approach

Abstract

In the construction sector, wood products are gaining interest. Methods are necessary to quantify material use and evaluate their potential effects. When quantifying the building material consumption, many studies are limited to residential buildings due to the lack of data for non-residential buildings. This research aimed at investigating a methodology to account for non-residential building material consumption. A method to estimate the volume of wood products in the structures of the new non-residential buildings was presented. Then, projections of the estimation were suggested according to three scenarios (minimum, average, and maximum). Sensitivity analyses highlighted the parameters that present the greatest contribution to the scenarios. The relative importance of the estimation to the total harvesting of all wood markets was also assessed. Despite the high uncertainty in wood consumption for non-residential building structures, the estimation had a small weight on the total harvesting of the Quebec province. The results showed how and when the resource availability could be constrained depending on the assumptions. This method can serve for life cycle inventory for an environmental assessment or wood flow analysis, but more research on the material composition of the non-residential building archetypes is necessary.