Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) - A Sustainability Analysis

This report delves into Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) as a sustainable construction material. It begins by emphasizing the importance of considering social, economic, and environmental factors when choosing construction materials, highlighting the significance of embodied energy consumption. The report examines the advantages of CLT, including its low processing energy requirements, faster construction times, and reduced waste. It also addresses potential issues such as higher costs and the need for skilled contractors. The report further explores the implications of CLT for sustainability, safety, cost, and procurement, emphasizing its role in promoting rural timber economies and sustainable forest management. The report concludes by underscoring the benefits of CLT in maximizing efficiency throughout the design, production, and construction stages, and its contribution towards sustainable development within building engineering and civil projects.

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CROSS LAMINATED TIMBER
By (Student’s Name)
Course
Professor’s Name
University
City, Date

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Introduction
Choosing a construction material, strategy or a structural system is critical when aiming to attain
sustainability (Boubaker et al., 2018). The social, economic and environmental factors have to be
put into consideration as explained in this paper (Shaffer, 2018). Additionally, the embodied
energy consumption for various construction materials shown below is important. The paper
strives to look at the Cross Laminated Timber that uses low processing energy requirement,
being a wood product. Also, the advantages, potential issues and management implications due
to CLT are discussed (Jones, 2017).
Fig. 1 above shows the processing energy requirements for various construction materials (Jones,
2017).

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Choosing a Construction Material
Selecting a construction material requires one to consider the material’s life cycle considerations
as well as its aesthetic appeal (Caspeele et al., 2018). The following is the descriptive life cycle
assessment considered during material selection:
 Extraction and Manufacture
Impacts on the environment regarding construction materials’ extraction and manufacture,
for example, possible pollution effects have to be considered as implemented in the
Queensland mine case study (Mathew et al., 2018).
 Sourcing
A material's availability and the source are put into consideration to help in keeping resultant
emissions and transport costs to a reduced level (Pomponi et al., 2018).
 Installation/Construction
Systems and materials should be selected properly to enable easier installation and
construction. Having a complicated installation or construction process may lead to greater
wastage of materials. Additionally, materials in building designs should be installed allowing
future reuse or replacement (Caspeele et al., 2018).
 Performance
The durability, health and safety, structural capability and maintenance factors of a material
is considered important when lowering costs or generally minimizing adverse effects to the
environment or occupants (Boubaker et al., 2018).
 Waste disposal/reuse/recycling

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Materials capable of recycling, re-using or proper disposal once through with their useful life
will decrease the dependency to producing new materials in the future. Also, there will be a
reduced embodied carbon footprint as implemented in the Queensland recycling facilities
(Pomponi et al., 2018). The technique of installing or fixing building materials has the
capability of instilling a material’s recycling, reusing and disposal status.
Choosing Strategies
Selecting the best strategy during construction operations is the main determinant when targeting
high productivity (Chen, 2018). This selection process is complex due to the decisive actions
caused by considering numerous attributes that include time, cost, quality, building element’s
physical features, the construction’s method characteristics, every alternative’s risk, the
environment and available resources (Caspeele et al., 2018). The considered attributes in the
construction strategy will vary in accordance with the project’s reality as well as the principles of
the company involved in the construction.
Choosing Structural Systems
When selecting a structural system, the Triple Bottom Line theory should be observed for
sustainability (Shaffer, 2018). The Triple Bottom Line Theory is considered as a way for the
building industry to move towards achieving sustainable development taking into account
environmental, social and economic issues (Boubaker et al., 2018). This entails involving
structural systems that are less detrimental to the environment and increasing waste reuse during
the building material’s production when implementing a building project (Caspeele et al., 2018).
Such structural systems will be profitable for companies and be beneficial to societies. Hence,
attaining sustainability as per the Triple Bottom Line theory.

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Cross Laminated Timber (CLT)
Cross Laminated timber comes from softwood timbers and is produced by sectioning and laying
up grains of timber perpendicularly across one another before the material is finished by
industrial lamination (De Proft et al., 2018). These laminated layers of perpendicular grains of
wood depend on structural and thickness requirements, therefore, the layers are produced
according to precise predetermined structural loading for every distinct CLT piece of wood
(Jones, 2017). The CLT layers are glued together in a pressurized enclosure by polyurethane
adhesive (Sivakugan et al., 2016).
Advantages Associated with CLT
CLT has numerous benefits. Comparing CLT with concrete or steel construction exposes the
CLT’s lower impact material feature and its reduced embodied carbon footprint. The faster
construction time for CLT production over the traditional methods puts an estimated 6-times
faster rate (Peters, 2017). This comes from the design type of panel construction as well as its
ease in remediation and subsequent fixing. CLT is very light allowing reduced slab which
positively impacts the carbon totals (Pomponi et al., 2018). Also, there is clean and reduced
waste left on site (De Proft et al., 2018). The health and safety factor regarding CLT is improved
due to the minimized wet trades and dust production from brick or block works when handling
the materials in construction procedures (Sivakugan et al., 2016).
Potential Issues Associated with CLT

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The successful improvements in CLT described above have led to industrial knowledge and
awareness (De Proft et al., 2018). This has produced knowledgeable attributions and capabilities
for further CLT improvement. On the other hand, there are various perceived concerns and
barriers in the building industry.
For example, one major barrier relates to the cost of CLT products. CLT products are known to
be costly and the implied costs of CLT is CLT per m2 is more compared to concrete and steel
(Sivakugan et al., 2016). However, considering the reduced onsite waste reduction and reduced
programmes, CLT’s building cost equals traditional constructions up to 7 levels (De Proft et al.,
2018).
One more obstacle that associates from the use of CLT is that CLT method of construction
makes the contractors’ demand different when compared to traditional methods. Contractors are
forced to adjust to these requirements by ensuring skilled team members are employed with
familiarity with CLT (Jones, 2017). This leads to varying interactions with a variety of on-site
trades.
Furthermore, off-site precision elements affect on-site tolerance to resulting in a need for a
learning curve for team members. The accuracy levels in floor slabs may be under one
millimetre, these tolerance levels have the tendency to slow down on-site proceedings.
There is a requirement for proper design integration regarding CLT when mitigating potential
issues. When designing, one has to ensure to ad panelling acoustics that improves attenuation in
noise or specify shading or cladding to curb sun discolouration (De Proft et al., 2018). It is
important to have design details that are accurate before the construction work begins, this

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ensures full and proper building. Any retrospective changes in designs would lead to an increase
in cost and material wastage (Caspeele et al., 2018).
Potential implications to the management
 Sustainability
There is a need for rural timber communities to be given an opportunity to develop a robust
economy that can survive political and economic changes in order to thrive in future (Shaffer,
2018). If CLT is promoted, linkages will be created to deal with the sustainable development of
urban cities (Peters, 2017). The rural areas as well will be reinvigorated with required job
opportunities in timber production.
Cross-laminated timber provides triple net approaches to affordable housing, environmental and
urban design problems (Chen, 2018). The wood structure's carbon sink is beneficial to the planet
as well as advocating the sustainable management of forests.
 Safety
Cross-laminated timber is inherently resistant to fire. CLT should be created to allow high fire
resistance and not like steel which maintains its stable structures when exposed to extreme
temperatures (Chen, 2018).
 Cost
CLT prefabricated buildings give substantial savings in construction costs and time (Jones,
2017). For the industrial, mid-rise and similar residential floor area, 30% time of construction
was saved by CLT compared to brick, concrete and steel structures. This in return saves labour

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costs (Sivakugan et al., 2016). CLT structures aids in keeping materials in their normal life cycle
instead of exporting Oregon lumbers. Thus lower shipping costs.
The efficiency in CLT building process is because of the timber panels that are prefabricated,
accommodating building timelines that are simpler and efficient (De Proft et al., 2018). Thus
commonly encountered labour problems among developers can be solved.
 Procurement
CLT plays a crucial role in forest management sustainability as it is able to be manufactured
using dead trees or low-value trees with smaller diameters as four inches (Jones, 2017). Low-
grade trees can be designed into CLT panels offering a viable economy to forest materials at risk.
Conclusion
Choosing the most suitable construction strategy, material and systems promote sustainable
development within building engineering and civil projects (Boubaker et al., 2018). Building
structures using cross-laminated timber has thus proved to be sustainable entirely in its design
development and research. Therefore, it ensured maximization and efficiency of production,
design and construction stages throughout the research (Caspeele et al., 2018).

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References
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Chen, H. (2018). Structural Health Monitoring of Large Civil Engineering Structures. Illustrated
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De Proft, K., Brebbia, C. A. and Connor, J. (2018). Timber Structures and Engineering.
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Pomponi, F., De Wolf, C. and Moncaster, A. (2018). Embodied Carbon in Buildings:
Measurement, Management, and Mitigation. 1 ed. Brisbane: Springer.

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