Modelling and Assessing the Potential of Structural Timber for Achieving Latvia’s Sustainable Development Goals

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Abstract

The use of structural timber in buildings can serve as a significant source of long-term biogenic carbon storage and a tool for climate change mitigation. This study assesses the potential of structural timber and its associated Harvested Wood Products (HWP) within the Latvian building stock using a normative building typology and a material intensity modelling approach. The model links statistical data on the Latvian building stock, the official functional classification of buildings, and structural timber material intensity coefficients. It analyses changes in total building floor area and timber building floor area from 2010 to 2025 and develops deterministic HWP development scenarios up to 2050. Under the assumed typological configuration, the reference models indicate that structural timber intensity decreases with the number of storeys and approaches approximately 0.07 m3/m2 in the extrapolated range. A significant disproportion was identified between the share of timber buildings by count and by floor area, with the largest latent HWP potential concentrated in multi-apartment, industrial, agricultural, and logistics building groups. Under the historical timber floor-area trend scenario, the reference embedded structural timber stock increases from 0.957 million m3 in 2025 to 1.194 million m3 in 2050. After applying the material intensity correction factors, the adjusted HWP stock estimate reaches 1.313–1.611 million m3, corresponding to 1.05–1.29 million t CO2eq of biogenic carbon storage. Under the 50% reference floor-area scenario, where the timber floor-area share in selected functional groups increases linearly to 50% of the 2025 reference floor area by 2050, the reference embedded structural timber stock reaches 6.764 million m3. The adjusted HWP stock estimate reaches 7.441–9.132 million m3, corresponding to 5.95–7.31 million t CO2eq of biogenic carbon storage. The required annual increase in reference embedded structural timber stock under this benchmark scenario is approximately 0.232 million m3/year, or about 6.6% of Latvia’s annual sawn timber production flow. The results suggest that targeted promotion of structural timber in priority building groups could substantially increase long-term carbon storage in the built environment, while providing an order-of-magnitude link between construction sector development and national HWP carbon accounting.

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