FORESTS FOR WOOD
Wood products from our sustainably managed forests have a significant role to play in climate change mitigation.
We need wood for our buildings and for many of the products we use everyday and wood products are both sustainable and renewable. Wood products require less energy to produce than many other common materials so using wood as a substitute is better for our environment.
Not only do our living trees sequester carbon, but the harvested wood continues to store this carbon in a variety of long-life wood products resulting in a positive environmental impact. These long-life wood products will build the low carbon homes of the future and underpin Ireland’s ambition of decarbonising the built environment to achieve ‘net zero’ by 2050.
Ireland’s forest products sector is recognised as a European market leader and produces a range of quality wood and wood-based panel products for both the domestic and export construction and joinery markets. Woodbased panel products manufactured by Medite Smartply include OSB and MDF. No part of the tree goes to waste and at the end of life, our wood products can be recycled to support the circular economy.
Coillte promotes a ‘wood first’ policy to drive the use of wood as a natural, sustainable and low carbon alternative to other common building products through education, training, marketing and promotion.
COILLTE'S FUTURE AMBITIONS AIM TO:
Produce 25 million cubic metres of certified Irish timber, to support the construction of 300,000 homes by 2030
Promote the use and benefits of wood products to help increase the level of timber homes from 20% to 80% by 2050
Develop innovative wood products to meet the growing demand for sustainable materials to support the bioeconomy
did you know?
Coillte is Ireland's largest producer of wood
Coillte produces over 3 million cubic metres of sustainably grown Irish timber products every year
Wood products are carbon friendly
Over 3 million tonnes of CO2 is stored in long life wood products produced by the Irish forest products sector each year
Using wood can help fight climate change
For every cubic metre of local wood we substitute in place of other more carbon intensive building materials, we save on average 0.77 tonnes of C02 equivalents
We are learning new uses for wood
Our wood is being used to develop new cellulose and lignin based low carbon products to displace fossil based ones
FORESTS FOR PEOPLE
Coillte is Ireland’s largest provider of outdoor recreation with 260 recreational forests nationwide, including 3,000km of way marked walking trails, 12 forest parks and six mountain bike centres.