WOOD IS THE NEW GREENISH

WOOD, oh wood. Contrary to popular belief, we are not running out of forests and trees. Our American forests have experienced more growth than decline since the 1940s - we have more forests now than we did in 1920. Wood is the most plentiful renewable resource in the world and is the only building product that is renewable, energy efficient, biodegradable, recyclable, and extremely beautiful.
Harvested and milled timber continues to store the carbon in the wood for the life of the product. When more trees are planted, more carbon is taken out of the atmosphere. Using wood products precludes the use of fossil-fuel intensive alternatives like steel and concrete. Actively managed forests that utilize growing trees to produce forest products can play a huge role in the reduction of atmospheric carbon.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an adopted standard to assess environmental impact of a product, process or activity on the environment over its lifetime. LCA assessment includes extraction, manufacturing, transportation, installation, use, maintenance, disposal or re-usage.
In terms of releasing of pollutants into the air and water, emmission of greenhouse gases and phenomenal outlays of embodied energy in production, wood out-performs steel and concrete in ways we haven't even begun to measure.
TOP THREE REASONS TO USE WOOD OVER ALL ELSE IN CONSTRUCTION:
1. Wood products continue to store the carbon sequestered by trees. When trees are converted into wood products most of the sequestered carbon is contained in those products indefinitely-keeping it out of the atmosphere.
2. LCA studies show that wood has a substantially smaller carbon footprint than other building materials. Most notable is the significant volume of greenhouse gas emissions avoided by substituting wood products for concrete and steel - both strong contributors in high amounts of CO2 emissions. )
3. After decades or even centuries of use, wood buildings can be easily adapted or deconstructed and reused, which means they can continue to store carbon indefinitely.

A 2009 study conducted by CORRIM compared four different structures using different wall systems – two woods, one concrete and one steel. The report found that the steel wall system generated 33% more greenhouses gases than wood and the concrete wall generated 80% more greenhouse gases than wood. The study also reported that the wood structures out-performed the steel and concrete houses in energy use and the impact on air and water quality. The global warming footprint of the steel-frame house was also 26 per cent higher and the concrete-frame house 31 per cent higher than the homes framed in wood.