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SAOLWood

Sustainable construction and Assessment Of the full Lifecycle impact of Irish harvested Wood products (SAOLWood) Project

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Introduction

The SAOLWood Project is a joint project between the Timber Engineering Research Group at the National University of Ireland Galway (NUI Galway), The University of Limerick (UL) and the Technological University Dublin (TU Dublin). The project aims to minimise the carbon footprint of construction projects by promoting greater use of sustainable timber solutions in place of high embodied carbon materials and delivering a comprehensive database for improved lifecycle assessment of the impacts of utilising locally sourced Irish wood products in the built environment.

Objectives

The main objectives of the SAOLWood Project are:

To review Irish construction practices on monitoring and tracking the environmental performance of materials used in construction.
To create a new national database of lifecycle data for harvested wood products.
To examine the life cycle performance and reduce the impacts during construction and deconstruction.
To quantify the environmental, economic and social impacts of locally-sourced Irish timber products to support informed decisions by building designers, contractors, planners, developers and policy-makers.

Project Team

NUI Galway Team

Dr. Patrick McGetrick, Project Co-ordinator
Prof. Cathal ODonoghue, Principal Investigator
Dr. David Styles, Investigator
Dr. Conan O'Ceallaigh, Research Fellow
Mr. Song Ge, PhD Researcher

UL Team

Mr. Micheal Quilligan, Principal Investigator
Postdoctoral Researcher

TU Dublin Team

Dr Aimee Byrne, Principal Investigator
PhD Researcher

Industry Partners

There are eight industry partners:

News and Events

06/06/2022 - Postdoctoral Researcher Vacancy

The SAOLWood Team are searching for a suitable qualified to take up the role of Postdoctoral researcher in life cycle assessment of timber construction. The selected candidate will be based at the School of Engineering at the University of Limerick. The deadline for submission is the 16/6/2022.
More info - Link

10/12/2021 - 2021 Competitive Research Call Launch

Dr. Patrick McGetrick of the Timber Engineering Research Group of NUI Galway was delighted to attend the announcement of the Competitive Research Call 2021 where Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue, T.D., and Minister of State Martin Heydon, T.D., jointly announced awards of €20 million in funding for 24 research projects arising from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine’s Competitive Research Call 2021. The SAOLWood Project was one such project funded with an emphasis on sustainability in the context of the current climate-related challenges and the need to deliver on the Climate Action Plan 2021. The SAOLWood project is led by the Timber Engineering Research Group of NUI Galway in collaboration with the University of Limerick (UL) and the Technological University Dublin (TU Dublin) and aims to minimise the carbon footprint of construction projects, promoting greater use of sustainable timber solutions in place of high embodied carbon materials.

Publications

Conference Publications

Ge, S., McGetrick, P.J., O’Ceallaigh, C., Harte, A.M., (2023). Development of lifecycle inventory for timber products to support the circular economy in construction. Proceedings of the 8th International Association for Life-cycle Civil Engineering (IALCCE 2023) Milan, Italy.

Posters Presentations

Saolwood Bioeconomy event 2022
The SAOLWood Poster presented at the launch of Bioeconomy Week 2022