Page 15 - InnoRenew CoE International Conference 2024

Green tax policies – a tool for enhancing wood and other natural

materials from renewable sources used for sustainable construction

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Črtomir Tavzes *, Balazs David , Jaka Gašper Pečnik , Marica Mikuljan ,
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Daša Majcen , Laszlo Hajdu , Andreja Kutnar 1,2
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1 InnoRenew CoE, Livade 6a, 6310 Izola, Slovenia (crtomir.tavzes@innorenew.eu, balazs.david@innorenew.eu, jaka.pecnik@innorenew.eu,
marica.mikuljan@innorenew.eu, dasa.majcen@innorenew.eu, laszlo.hajdu@innorenew.eu, andreja.kutnar@innorenew.eu)
2 University of Primorska, Titov trg 4, 6000 Koper, Slovenia
* Corresponding author

Due to the climate crisis, the construction industry is at a crucial crossroad. The choice of building materials
affects the cost and efficiency of construction and plays a key role in achieving broader sustainability goals.
One of the simplest and least cost-demanding ways to achieve sustainability (also measured as decreased GHG
emissions) can be the increased use of (predominantly) wooden products instead of functional alternatives from
other materials. Slovenia is especially well-suited for such a transition, as it has sustainably managed forests
with a large stock of wood and annual increase thereof (Kuzman in Kutnar, 2015), and therefore, enough raw
materials for a significant increase in the manufacture of such products. However, wooden products are often

more expensive, or at least users think so (Ilgin et al., 2022). With Green Taxation, the state can create favourable
market conditions for the purchase of wood products, to achieve sustainable construction (Schau et al., 2023).
Several legislative packages were adopted at the global and EU level, and the member states have committed to
reducing GHG emissions, also in the buildings sector.

We prepared proposals for VAT reductions on wooden products. Based on the required functionality for a single-
family model house (100 m2 of usable area), we determined three alternatives (exclusively wooden, combination
of wood and non-wood, and exclusively non-wood materials) for 10 building assemblies or construction products
and compared the carbon footprint, amount of biogenic carbon bound in them, and price. The modelled results
show that it is possible to achieve a good balance between the price and environmental impacts of the selected
building assemblies. With an appropriate adjustment of the VAT rate on wooden products, they can be at least
comparable if not even cheaper than non-wooden. Results offer a data-based policy foundation that, in addition
to price, properly takes environmental impacts into account.

Keywords: sustainable construction, Green Tax Policies, GHG emissions, prices, wooden and non-wooden
products comparison

Acknowledgment: The authors gratefully acknowledge receiving funding from Slovenian Research and
Innovation Agency (ARIS) and Ministry of the Economy, Tourism and Sport for funding the project V4-2351
and infrastructure program IO-0035.

REFERENCES
Ilgın, H. E., Karjalainen, M., Koponen O. P., Soikkeli, A. 2022. A Study on Contractors’ Perception of Using Wood
for Construction. 10.5772/intechopen.103168

Kuzman, M., Kutnar, A. 2015. Contemporary Slovenian Timber Architecture for Sustainability. 10.13140/
RG.2.1.4538.6966.

11–12 SEPTEMBER 2024 I IZOLA, SLOVENIA 15