COP21 goes PEFC

4 December 2015 Sustainable construction

PEFC is proud that negotiations underway at COP21 in Paris are taking place in wooden plenary halls made out of PEFC-certified timber, sourced from sustainably managed forests. Made entirely of wood, the plenary halls are now hosting up to 2,000 delegates to debate the future climate agreement.

To produce this 4,000m² structure, more than 40 staff from the company Arbonis, specialized in the design and implementation of wood projects, worked in partnership with Décoral-Jaulin, the company responsible for preparing the site.

Wood was chosen on the basis that the material enables the construction of buildings whose structure stores carbon, while creating efficient, thermal pockets. Wood is also the only naturally renewable raw product for building. The woods used for the plenary room are sourced from PEFC-certified, sustainably managed forests.

Key figures

• Surface area of the plenary room: 4,000 m²
• Capacity: 2,000 people
• Number of working hours: 300 hours for prior studies, 5,800 hours in production plants, and 1,400 hours on the Paris-Le Bourget site.
• Wood species: Douglas fir (Limousin and Massif Central) for the structure; pine and spruce (Centre and Limousin) for the ceiling. All wood sourced from PEFC-certified sustainably managed forests.
• Quantity of wood: 644m³– or around 900 trees from sustainably managed forests, which means that for every tree cut, another is planted. N.B. 1 hectare of forest represents about 1,200 trees.
• Convoy: 6 special trucks and 14-16 conventional trucks (2 trucks per day for roofing panels).