Carbon at a glance
How much carbon does bio-based building store?
Not all bio-based options are equal. Some materials lock away an order of magnitude more carbon than others per cubic metre; some crops build soil year after year while others barely move it. This page gives you the feel for those differences at a glance.
These are indicative, order-of-magnitude figures from the bio-based-construction and agronomy literature — for comparison and intuition, not certified per-project values.
The order-of-magnitude idea
A wooden foundation locks in ~22–37 tonnes of CO₂ per house
Solid timber stores about 816 kg CO₂ per m³ — roughly 14× what loose bio-based insulation stores per m³. A house on 30–50 driven wooden piles keeps that carbon out of the atmosphere for centuries below the water table. It is the Amsterdam “underground forest”, and Underground Forest is reviving it deliberately for carbon storage.
kg CO₂ stored per m³ of material
Materials — carbon stored per m³
How much biogenic carbon each material locks into a building, per cubic metre. Log scale — the bars compress a 10× range so the smallest is still visible. Structural / load-bearing materials are marked.
- Larch wood shingles (skodle)935 kg/m³
- Wooden foundation pile816 kg/m³structural
- OSB (Oriented Strand Board)810 kg/m³structural
- Log / timber frame wall799 kg/m³structural
- Cross-laminated timber (CLT) — spruce768 kg/m³structural
- Hempcrete blocks510 kg/m³
- Hempcrete wall510 kg/m³structural
- Miscanthus fibre composite panel490 kg/m³
- Cordwood wall480 kg/m³structural
- Miscanthus particle board480 kg/m³
- Thatched roof280 kg/m³
- Reed thatching board (modernised)266 kg/m³
- Reed Boards and Insulation Panels266 kg/m³
- Wood fibre insulation boards224 kg/m³
- Straw bale wall154 kg/m³structural
- Strawbale (load-bearing)154 kg/m³structural
- Cattail and Reed Biobased Insulation Material98 kg/m³
- Cellulose fibre insulation77 kg/m³
- Hemp fibre insulation60 kg/m³
- Flax fibre insulation60 kg/m³
- Textile insulation59 kg/m³
Bar = kg CO₂ stored per m³ (biogenic carbon factor × density). GWP/manufacturing emissions are a separate axis, shown on each material's own page.
Crops — yearly capture, and which build soil
Carbon captured per hectare, per year
Indicative tCO₂e/ha/yr into harvestable biomass. Paludiculture (reed, cattail) tops it — high biomass plus avoided peat oxidation.
Building soil (perennials & cover crops)
Net soil-carbon gain, tC/ha/yr. Perennials and cover crops keep building soil structure year after year — annual/residue crops barely move it.
Explore the connections
Every crop and material here connects to the regions it grows in, the buildings it's used in, and the policies behind it. Open the live map or the data table to follow those links.