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The Environmentally Friendly Choice

Wood may be the most environmentally friendly material available for building homes or businesses. Here's why.

• Non-wood products are environmentally expensive. The supplies of ores and petroleum for their production are finite; once gone, they are gone forever. Wood, on the other hand, is a renewable resource. Non-wood products require far more energy to manufacture than wood: for example – nine times as much for a steel stud as for a wood stud. That further depletes supplies of fossil fuels and coal, not to mention increased pollution of the air and water.*

• Wood is reusable, recyclable and biodegradable. Inorganic materials not only require excessive energy to produce, but also to recycle or dispose of when their use has been terminated.*

• Growing just one pound of wood in a vigorous younger forest removes 1.47 pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and replaces it with 1.07 pounds of life-sustaining oxygen. Carbon dioxide accounts for about half of the world’s greenhouse gases, a contributor to global-warming.*

• Study after study in Europe, North America and elsewhere has shown that wood outperforms other products when considered over its complete life cycle. One study, conducted by the Consortium for Research on Renewable Industrial Materials (CORRIM) compared the environmental impacts of homes framed with wood and steel in Minneapolis and with wood and concrete in Atlanta – the framing types most common to each city. According to the report, the homes framed in steel and concrete would require 17 and 16 percent more energy respectively (from extraction through maintenance) than their wood framed counterparts.**

Derived from a Healthy Source

A recent study from the Society of American Foresters reports that the United States has about 750 million acres of forestland, a number that has remained relatively stable for the past 100 years. Other positive notes include:

• On average, 11 percent of the world's forestland benefits from some type of conservation effort;

• Historical trends indicate that the standing inventory (volume of growing stock) of hardwood and softwood tree species in U.S. forests grew 49 percent between 1953 and 2006;

• An estimated 25 percent of U.S. private forestland is managed in accordance with one of the three major forest certification programs  Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and American Tree Farm System (ATFS).

Costs Less

A study of two almost identical homes – one framed with wood, one with cold-formed steel – showed the builder’s cost for the steel-framed home was 14.2 percent higher than the wood-framed home. The steel-framing package cost (framing labor and material) was 42.4 percent higher than that of a wood-framing package. Total framing time (labor hours) for the steel house was 4.3 percent higher, and the framing material cost was 43.5 percent higher. The report's authors caution that cost differences can vary depending on labor markets and other factors.***

Know the Facts

Using wood makes the most sense when it comes to protecting our environmental health. For more information, see these "Wood and Green Building" fact sheets produced by the Wood Promotion Network:

• Leed® vs. Green Globes™

• Home Builder Guidelines

• The Role of Life Cycle Assessment

• Using Wood to Fight Climate Change

*From Wood Products Enhance Our Environment by the Southern Forest Products Association and Southern Pine Council.

** From Wood and Green Building, a series of fact sheets produced by the Wood Promotion Network. Copies available at www.beconstructive.com or above.

*** From Steel vs. Wood, Cost Comparison, Beaufort Demonstration Homes, a PATH research report prepared by NAHB Research Center for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the North American Steel Framing Alliance and the National Association of Home Builders.