Over the past few years, many of Australia’s best architects and builders have been sprouting their goals of being carbon neutral. But what does it actually mean? We suspect that for some – far from being concerned for our environment –it’s simply a marketing exercise wrapped around their ties to the Australian timber industry.
The real question is… does this truly benefit our environment at all? Does choosing the last of the Western Australian Jarrah (and trucking it across Australian) really beat using a fully sustainable product, like bamboo, which has a greater carbon sink? Even if it arrived by sea?
All too often we hear the response ‘Call me when bamboo is locally grown’, but are we really willing to wait until the forests are in true depletion until we consider alternatives? As we know, many species are actually not that far off – and there will come a point when you won’t see them available again for 30 years! That’s a long time to wait, for the sake of transport issues.
It’s clear that we need to renavigate this narrative so that our sustainable choices support effective carbon reductions and allow our land to be restored.
So why bamboo?
Simply, bamboo gives us the luxury of time; time to regrow, time to restore and time to rebuild. Jarrah, for example, takes a minimum of 150 years to reach maturity, and recently, we were asked to supply engineered bamboo for a project as there wasn’t enough timber to complete the build.
Bamboo is also an environmentally supportive crop. Research in Japan (among other studies) demonstrated that bamboo can absorb as much as 12 tonnes of carbon dioxide per hectare per year, giving the plant a potentially crucial role in stabilising our planet’s atmosphere. It also produces 35% more oxygen than many hardwoods. Bamboo can also work in many of Australia’s coastal areas much better than timber. It can prevent solid erosion due to its clumping root system; has a natural resistance to termites and has a quick growth rate.
Unfortunately, the rest of world is far ahead of Australian in bamboo farming and engineering, yet it’s clear that using bamboo would allow us to continue to build on our construction skills and create new agricultural initiatives and new jobs. However, it’s a two-way street. Designers can’t blinker themselves from the choices they make. The key is education and learning new materials so we can evolve our understanding of this product.
– Jennifer Snyders
Though bamboo offers many amazing benefits, we must make sure it is farmed in the right way; every plant needs the right cultivation to thrive. We need to work with our Chinese and international community to allow this to grow into something greater. This not about replacing one industry with another, it’s about allowing bamboo to work alongside timber, to give us greater options.
However, we need support and expertise to grow an industry. Climate change does not start or stop at the border and neither should our carbon neutral options.