The built environment significantly contributes to climate change. There is pressure on the construction industry to find and use alternative sustainable environmentally friendly building materials to reduce the climate impact. Timber is increasingly being considered in the literature and used as a viable alternative for steel and concrete in both residential and non-residential building projects as it is a renewable material and has multiple benefits for reducing carbon (CO₂) emissions and consequently climate change. This study aims to research the benefits of sustainable timber construction in terms of climate change. To achieve this aim, a systematic literature review was performed based on the research conducted between 1998 and 2022. For this purpose, research papers were searched from the Web of Science database and screened by applying a combination of keywords and the criteria for academic publication selection, including climate change, timber or wooden building, renewable material, sustainable material, carbon sink, carbon reduction, embodied energy, lifecycle assessment, and the circular economy. Further, a quantitative analysis of publications was performed using a science mapping approach, and qualitative content analysis was then conducted in three areas of research: timber as a sustainable construction material, the carbon storage of and reduction in GHG/CO₂ emissions, and the circular economy. Research trends, general findings, and knowledge gaps were identified, and future research directions were indicated. The literature review proves that timber construction is a potential solution to reduce climate change.

As woodworking and construction technologies improve, the construction of multi-storey timber buildings is gaining popularity worldwide. There is a need to look at the design of existing buildings and assess their sustainability. The aim of the present study is to assess the sustainability of modern high-rise timber buildings using multi-criteria assessment methods. The paper presents a hierarchical system of sustainability indicators and an assessment framework, developed by the authors. Based on this framework, the tallest timber buildings in different countries, i.e., Mjøstårnet in Norway, Brock Commons in Canada, Treet in Norway, Forte in Australia, Strandparken in Sweden and Stadthaus in UK, were compared across the three dimensions of sustainability (environmental, economic/technological, and social). Research has revealed that none of the buildings is leading in all dimensions of sustainability. However, each building is unique and has its own strengths. Overall multi-criteria assessment of the buildings revealed that the Brock Commons building in Canada has received the highest rank in all dimensions of sustainability. The paper contributes to the theory and practice of sustainability assessment and extends the knowledge about high-rise timber buildings. The proposed sustainability assessment framework can be used by both academics and practitioners for assessment of high-rise timber buildings.

With accelerating climate change and the urgent need to cut carbon emissions, global focus has turned to the existing building stock and its renovation. Sustainable renovation helps to achieve better energy performance and gain wider sustainability benefits, such as increased value of a building, improved indoor and outdoor comfort, reduced carbon emissions, and the higher satisfaction and better emotional state of inhabitants. Numerous systems and tools have been developed worldwide to assist with decision making in the choice of preferred modernisation scenarios and alternatives. However, social aspects are often neglected in the existing systems, and emotions of inhabitants are rarely analysed. To close this gap, the present study proposes an innovative decision-making framework for sustainable renovation solutions, based on emotion recognition. The framework makes it possible to assess various renovation alternatives against sustainability criteria and real-time measurements of the emotional states of inhabitants. Based on the proposed framework, an intelligent multi-criteria decision support system was developed by integrating COPRAS and the facial action coding system, the method of automatic facial expression recognition, and the continuous calibration and participant methods. The system was tested in the case study of renovation solutions for a building located in Ukraine. The research results revealed that the proposed renovation solutions had a positive impact on the emotional state of inhabitants, especially when visual materials such as drawings were presented. Some case studies were analysed together with the application of decision system tools and building information modelling (BIM) subsystem integration as a multidiscipline application of various applied sciences for representation and data analysis. The authors of this research have been analysing human emotional, affective and physiological states for many years and collected over a billion of these data in Vilnius city during the H2020 ROCK, SAVAS and BIM4REN projects. Data acquired during measurements in Vilnius were used to determine correlations and trends for the case study. The proposed methodology and findings of the study can be useful for researchers who use the evaluation and analysis of human emotions when there is a need to choose appropriate renovation measures or find alternative solutions.

The results of this research show that high-alkali biofuel fly ash (BFA) had a significant influence on the mechanical characteristics, microstructure, porosity, freezing–thawing cycle resistance, and ASR resistance of cementitious materials. Different amounts of BFA (varying from 0 to 30%) were used as a substitute for cement in concrete mixes. The impact of substituting cement with BFA on the cement hydration products was analysed. Slump behaviour, mechanical properties, water absorption, porosity, freeze–thaw cycles, and ASR resistance were studied. The analysis of the mechanical and physical characteristics of the developed sustainable concrete revealed that a better structure, higher compressive and flexural strength and density values, and better freeze–thaw and ASR resistance as well as lower water absorption values were achieved when as much as fifteen percent of cement was substituted with high-alkali BFA. The calculations indicate that the substitution of cement with different quantities of high-alkalinity BFA (from 0% to 30% BFA) increased the SiO₂/CaO ratio from 0.32 to 0.51 and the Na₂O + K₂O/CaO ratio from 0.02 to 0.067 in the composition. An evident higher quantity of the hydration products, reflected in the reduction of porosity by up to 27%, the improvement in compressive strength by up to 19.3%, and the calculated freeze–thaw resistance value of up to 51.50%, was observed when the Na₂O + K₂O/CaO ratio did not exceed 0.044. The ASR resistance of the concrete improved with the increase in the Na₂O + K₂O/CaO ratio. This study shows that BFA with high alkalinity is beneficial in the development of sustainable building materials.