Wood Products Living a Green Life

Western Red Cedar’s value lies in beauty, durability and environmental responsibility

Increasing focus on environmental responsibility is placing greater emphasis on sustainable building products and their ability to lower carbon footprints.

Building materials and techniques that increase energy efficiency attract a lot of attention, but end use is only a part of the story. Truly sustainable building efforts consider a product’s manufacturing-to-disposal environmental footprint. Careful life cycle examination provides a fuller environmental assessment and represents the next stage in green building materials.

Builders, at the urging of architects and consumers, are demanding materials that stand up to construction and environmental scrutiny. They want materials with a green reputation as solid as wood is durable.

Turns out wood meets both criteria. Wood products, desired for their beauty and durability and often dismissed as a green choice, are also the most environmentally friendly.

A recent life cycle assessment comparing Western Red Cedar to non-wood decking and siding alternatives found that natural wood creates lower greenhouse gas emissions and allows for recycling and energy recovery opportunities that cut methane gas emissions in landfills.

“As green building regulations become the standard in building, consumers who previously favored more ’maintenance-free’ materials as their siding and decking products of choice will need to consider alternatives such as Western Red Cedar to help lessen their environmental footprint,” said John Wagner, a nationally recognized green and sustainability consultant.

Although green qualities have not yet become the deciding factor, environmental impact matters more and more. Consumers want to live beautifully, but are also weighing environmental sensitivity alongside durability and beauty in the building materials they choose.

Options that combine all three qualities provide the most value to consumers. And to architects, who are trying to balance those sometimes competing interests, and builders concerned about product performance. However, getting the whole picture about a product’s environmental impact and figuring out which are the most environmentally friendly can be challenging. Comparisons are often based on limited information or only a narrow set of criteria.

Truly sustainable building efforts consider a product’s manufacturing-to-disposal environmental footprint. Careful life cycle examination provides a fuller environmental appraisal. A recent life cycle assessment performed by FPInnovations-Forintek, Canada’s leading forestry research laboratory, took a cradle-to-grave look at environmental impacts of various building materials. It compared residential decking and siding applications such as WPC decking, brick, fiber-cement, vinyl and Western Red Cedar. Complex analysis considered such factors as resource use, water use, energy use, transportation and waste created.

Western Red Cedar substantially outperformed in every decking category and faired best overall as a siding choice. The assessment found that Western Red Cedar is the “most sustainable building material.” Alternative building materials, often lauded for durability, create more environmental life cycle burden than wood, according to the study commissioned by the Western Red Cedar Lumber Association. As an example, a Western Red Cedar deck could be built twice – or more – over its service life and still outperform composite decking alternatives.

Such third-party findings provide valuable information as environmental impact becomes a bigger part of product selection during the building process.

“Knowing that the LCA proved alternative building materials like WPC decking, brick, fiber-cement, and vinyl create more environmental burden and consume more non-renewable fossil fuel during their life cycles helps me feel confident in recommending Western Red Cedar as the most sustainable building tool for my clients and consumers everywhere,” Wagner said.

For more information about Western Red Cedar or the life cycle assessment, visit www.wrcla.org.