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A plea for the efficient use of wood in construction

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The transition to climate-friendly cities has led to a renaissance of wood as a renewable building material. To prevent severe raw material shortages in the future, the material-first utilization of wood in long-living, resource-efficient engineered wood products and constructions will be key.

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Fig. 1: Resource demand of established engineered wood products.

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Acknowledgements

The results presented in this comment are part of the research project “Strong Hardwood” (FTI20-003). The financial support by Amt der Niederösterreichischen Landesregierung is gratefully acknowledged. Additionally, the results are part of the research project “UniStrand”. This project is funded by the Forest Fund, an initiative of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Regions and Water Management, and is carried out as part of the Think.Wood programme of the Austrian Wood Initiative (FFG 893351).

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Correspondence to Maximilian Pramreiter.

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Pramreiter, M., Nenning, T., Malzl, L. et al. A plea for the efficient use of wood in construction. Nat Rev Mater 8, 217–218 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-023-00534-4

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