Firstly, wood fuel is both carbon-neutral and renewable, therefore enabling reduction of CO2 emissions by displacing fossil fuels.
	Secondly, the elimination of handling and transportation in the disposal of wood waste provides further CO2 savings.
	Thirdly, by diverting wood offcuts from going to landfill, the methane emissions that would be generated when the wood rots down can be avoided. Methane gas is 23 times more damaging to the environment than CO2.

Contributing to carbon emission reduction targets

Woodwise have used input from the Carbon Trust to calculate how much CO₂ the Woodwise project is saving. These figures indicate that each tonne of waste wood recycled into woodchip represents a saving of 0.54 tonnes of CO₂.

Woodwise helps the local community and local authorities to achieve the energy efficiencies required of them by government policy as part of the UK's national target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% by 2050 (1990 as the baseline year).

The Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) is a new regulatory incentive to improve energy efficiency in large public and private sector organisations. Participating organisations will have to monitor their emissions and purchase allowances for each tonne of CO₂ they emit. Using woodchip from Woodwise reduces the number of emissions allowances the Council has to purchase because CO₂ has been minimised due to the sustainable source, local production and delivery of the fuel.

The Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) is a UK government scheme that offers consumers and businesses financial incentives to switch to renewable forms of heating such as biomass, heat pumps or solar power. This is in support of the government’s commitment to increase the production of heat from renewable energy to 12% (from its current level of 1%) by 2020.


Further information (external links):

More about Biomass Policy and Legislation.