Wood Gets Green Thumbs-Up from Government

The benefits of building with wood are numerous: wood is renewable, sustainable, cost-effective and beautiful. Building with wood also provides income that helps working woodland owners keep their forests intact.

What’s more, wood is versatile. It works well not just for single-family homes, but for larger commercial buildings.

While this is common knowledge to forest owners and those in the forestry community, governments have been slow to catch on—several “green building” policies do not reflect the benefits of wood as a green building material.

The American Tree Farm System® (ATFS), with the help of the Family Forest Action Network—a grassroots network of Tree Farmers and family forest advocates—has been working hard during the past few years to change green building policies that discriminate against wood, especially wood from ATFS-certified forests.

“We know that markets, like the green building market, are important to help family forest owners keep their forests healthy,” says Rita Hite, Executive Vice President of the American Forest Foundation (ATFS is a program of the American Forest Foundation). “With income from selling their wood, forest owners can reinvest resources back into their land—keeping it as a forest.”

This fall, two federal agencies changed their green building policies to offer more opportunities for construction with wood that can help support healthy markets for family forest owners.

In November, the Department of Defense (DOD) released a new green building policy that provides a level playing field for wood products— including those from ATFS-certified lands—in building construction. DOD’s previous policy allowed the use of only the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green-building rating system, which has historically discouraged the use of wood—especially wood from ATFS-certified forests—in building construction. With this change, DOD will recognize LEED and the Green Building Initiative’s Green Globes system, which includes wood from ATFS-certified lands.

The DOD announcement followed a similar announcement by the General Services Administration (GSA). In addition to setting the green building policy for their agency, GSA also makes recommendations to agencies across the federal government. In the past, GSA recommended that agencies use only LEED, but they now recommend that agencies use either LEED or Green Globes. DOD and GSA are two of the largest builders in the federal government and together they represent a significant potential market for wood, given the size and scale of many of their buildings.

“These policy victories help to increase the recognition of wood as a green building material, and it truly shows that by working together, we can make a difference,” says Hite.

For more information on why wood is a better way to build, check out the following video: www.forestfoundation. org/wood-a-better-way-to-build.