Around half of all building in the UK each year is new build residential by floor area and so significant reductions in embodied carbon the whole construction sector can be delivered via a switch to timber in housebuilding. The sector has historically preferred load-bearing cavity masonry and concrete frames over timber-framing but many developers believe timber is the solution to decarbonising the sector. 

In Scotland timber-framing accounts for 83% of the market and in England it is 23% and growing (1). Setting out to bust myths around the difficulty of delivering timber-framed volume housebuilding developers and consultants delivering this will answer:

• What are the factors that have expanded the use of timber-framing for housing in Scotland? Are they replicable throughout the UK?
• What are the implications for decarbonisation of the overall housebuilding industry?
• What are the options for multi-family apartment buildings available today?
• How can we regulate to support low-carbon structure for new build housing?