What is the Effect of Bamboo on Your Carbon Footprint?

Thinking sustainably is an important consideration for architects, businesses, specifiers, and homeowners. A good way to improve your environmental impact is through your choice of materials, and within that lies the role of bamboo.

At Gripsure, we distribute bamboo decking and cladding as an eco-friendly and attractive alternative to tropical hardwoods. In this article we’ll explore how much carbon is captured by bamboo, how it can help you avoid carbon emissions, and its role as a commercial carbon offset.

Reduce your carbon footprint with our bamboo decking and cladding products – get in touch!

When you’re planning your building project, you may end up finding a lot of the materials available to you produce sizeable carbon emissions.

From clearing the land in which to grow them, to their acquisition, processing, and transportation, there are a lot of factors involved that contribute to the overall carbon emissions that a resource creates.

You can avoid this issue by using eco-friendly alternatives. Bamboo substitutes can be used instead timber or high carbon materials like concrete and steel, providing extreme durability and beautiful visuals.

Find out about the sustainability of bamboo decking as a non-slip choice for your garden >

Through photosynthesis, bamboo converts carbon dioxide into energy, water, and oxygen. This reduces the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, making it a highly sustainable material.

The MOSO® bamboo used in our products grows up to a metre a day to a maximum height of 20 metres in 4-5 years, making it a rapidly growing and replenishable resource to use for your decking or cladding.

What is a Carbon Lock?

The carbon consumed by bamboo during photosynthesis is effectively locked inside of it in a process known as a “carbon lock”. This carbon becomes part of the makeup of the material, meaning it won’t be released again until the product decomposes or burns.

MOSO® bamboo can easily be raised to Fire Class B without chemical fire retardants, making it unlikely to burn. It also has an incredibly long lifespan, over 30 years, meaning it will last a long time before it needs replacement.

These factors combined mean that the carbon is unlikely to ever be released from your product throughout the duration of its lifespan.

How Much Carbon is Locked in Bamboo

There can be as much as 1.662 metric tonnes of CO₂ per m³ of bamboo when looking at strong variants such as the MOSO® X-treme®. When harvesting, the plant produces new stems which capture even more carbon, providing a steady supply of eco-friendly building materials.

Due to its fast growth and heavy, durable nature, the amount of carbon stored in bamboo can meet and exceed the levels of carbon stored in an equivalent timber product.

European norms can be used to determine the actual carbon content of a given type of bamboo. This takes into account the moisture content, weight, and density of the bamboo to create a resultant measure of its approximate carbon levels.

Check out our range of bamboo decking products to get an eco-friendly fit out for your garden >

Adding accents to your commercial project is an appealing idea, not just due to the visual enhancement it can provide your building but also because of its beneficial effects.

Cladding, including bamboo cladding like MOSO® X-treme®, is a beautiful way to add an interesting design feature to the exterior of your commercial building. It also provides additional support, with benefits such as:

• Natural insect repellence
• Fire resistance Class B without harmful chemical impregnation
• Energy efficiency through heat insulation
• Evolution of your building’s appearance with natural weathering to a silvery-grey

While these benefits are all attractive, they aren’t the limit of what bamboo cladding has to offer. Over the course of its lifespan, MOSO® X-treme® bamboo has a net-negative production of CO₂; this means it takes away more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than it produces to make and use.

A carbon sink such as bamboo cladding can lead to your business being more sustainable, helping to offset any carbon production you do have and guiding you along towards a net-zero carbon footprint.

See more about our sustainability efforts via our tree planting partnership with Plant One Cornwall >

Bamboo takes carbon out of the atmosphere, grows quickly, and provides a durable and eco-friendly alternative to standard building materials with a whole host of additional benefits.

At Gripsure, we are committed to providing quality solutions to sustainable building design. See our MOSO® bamboo products including decking and cladding to use in your garden or building project. Get in touch with our support team or read on with some related articles!

Keep yourself safe with our article on when decks are most dangerous >

Find out how to prepare your ground space for a decking installation >