Environment, Industry News, Latest News

Lendlease forms global sustainable timber partnership

Photo by Jeriden Villegas on Unsplash

A new partnership between international real estate group, Lendlease, and one of the world’s leading suppliers of sustainable timber, Stora Enso, is set to boost the use of environmentally friendly construction products, including sustainable timber, in construction.

Launched last week in Milan, Italy, where Lendlease has $7.9 billion in urbanisation projects underway, the new partnership will focus on three key areas: R&D into sustainable timber products including cross laminated timber (CLT); new ways these products can be used in construction; and their accessibility in the global market.

Lendlease has also announced the establishment of a dedicated studio in Milan to facilitate the creation of new sustainable timber products and increased use of sustainable timber across its $52 billion portfolio of European development projects.

Named Podium MX, Lendlease’s new Milan studio will be based at the company’s $3.6 billion Milan Innovation District, the former 2015 World Expo site, and will complement a similar facility the company established in Silicon Valley earlier this month.

In addition, Stora Enso’s product catalogue will be fully digitised through Lendlease’s end-to-end digital platform, Podium, making it easier for the company to design and build with sustainable timber in the future.

Tony Lombardo, Lendlease Global CEO and Managing Director said the global partnership between Lendlease and Stora Enso represented a natural evolution of a relationship stretching back more than a decade between our two companies.

In the past decade, the two companies have worked together to deliver eight sustainable timber buildings in cities including London, Sydney and Brisbane. For example, the use of sustainable timber instead of conventional reinforced concrete at Lendlease’s 25 King office project in Brisbane, Australia, reduced carbon emissions by 74 per cent, or 5,000 tonnes of carbon.

Given the built environment currently contributes about 40 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions globally, sustainable timber products represent a compelling opportunity for the construction industry to lighten its environmental footprint.

Strong, lightweight and resilient to fire and shocks, sustainable timber contains much less embodied carbon than traditional building materials such as steel and cement.


Related stories:

Send this to a friend