Green building with wood: a sustainable choice

With growing pressure on the carbon footprint of the built environment, building designers are increasingly being called upon to adopt green building practices. To address the critical issues of energy consumption, greenhouse gases and other environmental impacts, life cycle assessment (LCA) is increasingly used to evaluate material choices. Wood is the only major building material that grows naturally and is renewable.

Wood can balance functionality and cost objectives, while reducing a project’s environmental impact. Wood’s design flexibility makes it suitable for a wide range of building types and applications, both structural and aesthetic. Thanks to innovative new technologies, wood spans are longer, wood structures are taller, and the possibilities continue to expand. Structures made of wood, like the forests from which the building materials were derived, naturally sequester carbon.