MainWood provides the scientific foundation for a major shift towards increasing the Swiss production and use of wood in construction.
MainWood
The MainWood project aims to support the scientific basis for transitions that reduce carbon emissions in the construction industry, and to promote wood as sustainable alternatives to concrete. We show how wood for construction lowers CO2 emissions compared to traditional building materials, how to increase the wood production, and we explore new ways to use wood that would otherwise be burned for energy production. MainWood systematically approaches scenarios across the wood supply chain, ranging from Business as Usual (BaU) to increased wood production or construction, identifying key leverage points, and addressing bottlenecks, both qualitatively and quantitatively.
WHAT WE DO
A little over 30% of land in Switzerland is covered with forests. Each of these forests are managed and used differently, based on factors such as ownership, policy, climate, accessibility, and tree species. These factors also influence how much wood is produced, how susceptible forests are to pests, how vulnerable they are to climate extremes—and ultimately, how much CO₂ they can capture and store.
MainWood explores these dynamics in depth. We work closely with stakeholders in five regions across Switzerland: Jurapark (Aargau), Entlebuch (Luzern), Yverdon–Lausanne (Vaud), Surselva (Graubünden), and Mesolcina (Graubünden). Through modeling, we simulate future forest growth and wood production under various scenarios—offering realistic insights into how much wood we can expect in the coming decades under changing climate conditions.
