When the small town of Lytton, British Columbia, burned to the ground in 2021 after a record-breaking heatwave, the tragedy became a symbol of climate change’s escalating risks for Canadian communities. But as Lytton’s slow rebuild unfolds, it’s also emerging as a pilot project for how Canada might rethink the way it designs, constructs, and accounts for the carbon footprint of its buildings. At the heart of this transformation is a material that’s as old as civilization itself—wood, now reimagined as cross-laminated timber (CLT)—and a debate over how to count the carbon it stores.
According to CleanTechnica, the Lytton rebuild is more than a recovery effort; it’s a testbed for mass timber construction and for carbon accounting practices that could eventually shape national policy and international trade. The stakes are high: architects and engineers are modeling not just the emissions from building materials but also the carbon sequestered in the wood products themselves. This approach spotlights a larger question: should stored carbon in timber be recognized in official building codes, and how will that mesh with the export requirements of key markets like Europe and Asia?
It’s not a theoretical exercise. The science is straightforward: trees absorb carbon dioxide as they grow, and about half the dry mass of wood is carbon. When that wood becomes beams or panels in a building, the carbon remains locked away for as long as the structure stands. As CleanTechnica notes, a cubic meter of CLT contains roughly one ton of CO₂ equivalent, effectively turning a building into a carbon bank. The permanence of this storage depends on the fate of the wood at the end of the building’s life—reuse or landfill can keep the carbon locked up for centuries, while burning or decay releases it back into the atmosphere.
The climate case for mass timber is strong. Producing a cubic meter of CLT results in net emissions close to zero—or even negative, if stored carbon is counted—compared to 250 to 350 kilograms of CO₂ for a cubic meter of reinforced concrete and more than 1,000 kilograms for an equivalent amount of structural steel. Whole-building comparisons echo this advantage: mid-rise timber structures can have 20% to 40% lower embodied carbon than their concrete counterparts, with hybrid timber towers showing up to 26% reductions in global warming potential.
But the debate is not whether timber is lower carbon—it’s how much lower, and whether counting the carbon stored in wood could make construction not just low-carbon but carbon-negative. This is where policy and accounting get tricky.
Canada is only beginning to grapple with embodied carbon in its building codes. The upcoming 2025 National Building Code will introduce greenhouse gas objectives focused on operational emissions, with embodied emissions limits or reporting requirements targeted for 2030. Some provinces and cities are forging ahead: Vancouver has set embodied carbon caps for new construction that will tighten over the decade, and Quebec and British Columbia are considering similar steps for public projects. Yet, as CleanTechnica points out, the conservative approach so far is to track stored carbon but not let it offset required emission reductions—a stance that mirrors Sweden and some North American jurisdictions.
Export markets complicate matters further. Europe’s EN standards require reporting of biogenic carbon flows, meaning that product declarations for timber show negative emissions during production (thanks to sequestration) and equivalent positive emissions at end of life. France’s RE2020 regulation goes a step further, awarding a modest credit for delaying emissions, while Sweden insists on disclosure but excludes stored carbon from compliance caps to avoid double-counting with national forestry accounts. New Zealand is moving toward mandatory embodied carbon reporting by 2025 and caps by 2026, with timber expected to play a starring role. Japan, meanwhile, incentivizes timber use through its J-Credit system, which rewards projects that boost carbon storage, even if building codes themselves don’t count sequestration directly.
These international examples underscore two key principles: the time value of carbon (a ton of CO₂ released in 2075 is less damaging than one released in 2025), and the need to avoid double-counting (since carbon in wood products is already tallied in national land use inventories). For Canadian policymakers, the challenge is to develop rules that recognize the climate benefits of mass timber without undermining the integrity of national or international carbon ledgers.
There are practical ways forward. CleanTechnica suggests that Canada could require whole-building life cycle assessments aligned with EN 15804 (the European standard), set compliance caps only on fossil and process emissions (not allowing biogenic carbon to offset them), and mandate separate disclosure of stored carbon. For projects that want to highlight the time value of delayed emissions, optional dynamic reporting could be encouraged. Such a framework would offer transparency, maintain accounting integrity, and provide Canadian exporters with documentation that satisfies European and Asia-Pacific buyers.
The market implications are significant. European and Australasian rules are driving up demand for low-carbon building materials. If Canadian producers can demonstrate—using harmonized data—that their timber products have low embodied emissions and store carbon in line with international standards, they’ll be more competitive abroad. Domestically, credible carbon accounting can reassure insurers, lenders, and public funders that timber projects meet climate targets, lowering risk and accelerating adoption.
Back in Lytton, the rebuild is showing what this approach looks like in practice. By designing buildings that are durable, repairable, and ready for reuse, and by transparently reporting both emissions and stored carbon, the project can serve as a model for federal and provincial programs as well as export-oriented producers. The lessons from Lytton could help Canada rebuild communities, reduce emissions, and grow export markets—if the country gets its carbon accounting right.
As global demand for low-carbon construction heats up, Canada’s opportunity is clear: align domestic policies with international standards, recognize the unique climate value of mass timber, and ensure that Canadian wood is seen everywhere as both a building material and a climate solution. The story of Lytton may have begun in tragedy, but its next chapter could help define Canada’s role in a decarbonizing world.
