Green Building

Green building focuses on how effectively structures and the sites they are built on use energy, water and materials. This includes every step of the building process, as well as ongoing requirements during a structure’s life.

The goal is to enhance human health and the environment by focusing on site selection, building design, construction methods, operating systems, maintenance and waste.

Environmental profiles and life-cycle assessments are common methods for comparing environmental performance among green building materials. These methods rely on accurate and detailed data gathered during the course of a product’s life.

We provide product environmental profiles that are updated annually. This is a cradle-to-gate method of analysis, which means it examines the environmental effect of raw material extraction through production to the point of shipment from the manufacturing facility.

Life-cycle assessments provide a cradle-to-grave analysis by determining the total environmental effect from resource extraction to conversion for finished use, to demolition and disposal. While we do not regularly conduct life-cycle assessments for our products, we have provided lifecycle assessment data to the U.S. Life-Cycle Inventory Database, and we support organizations and consortiums that conduct life-cycle assessments on the types of products we make.

Independent reviews of these life-cycle assessments show that wood requires less energy to produce and provides better insulation from cold and heat than alternative materials. The Consortium for Research on Renewable Industrial Materials found that in a typical home, wood construction generates fewer air pollutants and offers the following advantages:

• 17 percent less energy needed than steel
• 16 percent less energy needed than concrete
• 26 percent less greenhouse gases generated than steel
• 31 percent less greenhouse gases generated than concrete

Additionally, our wood products are made from trees harvested from forests certified by third parties as sustainably managed. These wood products store carbon during their useful life, limiting the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Learn more about wood versus steel and concrete construction