Which is Greener?

By Ken Tennefoss, Editor, Crow’s Weekly Market Report

From the March 14th issue of Crow’s Weekly Market Report Subscriber access | More info

During the days of the Spotted Owl and the “tree hugger” movement, folks in the forest products industry came to realize they were up against a well-organized and well-funded movement. Over the next few years, the industry became better organized and began fighting back against the negative portrayal of loggers or anyone else involved with the harvesting, processing, selling, or distribution of products from our nation’s forests. Pro forest products organizations were formed at the local level and the national level to combat this threat to the industry. Two national organizations that contributed much to changing the misconceptions of the general public were The Wood Promotions Network and the Temperate Forest Foundation. Both are still working to educate the public to the positive role of this nation’s forest products industry.

Since then, the dynamics of the industry have changed. Many small mill operations have gone out of business and larger companies have purchased others. Producers have become more efficient at processing smaller diameter trees and utilizing more of the by-products. Forestlands management has also changed, and a vast portion of private timberlands are now owned by non-industry REITs (real estate investment trust) and TIMOs (timberland investment management organization).

Another dynamic that has changed is the public awareness of how our homes are constructed and the impact that construction has on the environment. Called “Green Building,” or similar names by many, it is fraught with misconceptions and half-truths about the forest products industry and the products it produces. These so-called “environmentally sound” building practices are fast becoming the new “Spotted Owl” for the forest products industry.

At a recent awards dinner for builders, the awards for the best “green built” houses were given and a video of each of the projects was shown. These houses had a selling price of $250,000 on the low side and $1.1 million for the highest. All of these home’s builders had used some environmentally sound building practices, however, one thing was very obvious from the video; alternatives to forest products were used extensively. The siding was concrete, the windows vinyl, the floors bamboo and tile, the counter tops granite, and the roofs tile or metal. One builder was heard to say, “If it keeps a tree from being cut, then it’s green.” This misconception runs deep within the building industry as well as the buying public and the mainstream media. They are being misled that these houses are the most environmentally friendly homes that can be built.

If these homes had been built with wood, the true “green building” product, the cost would probably have been less and the environment would have received a much greater benefit. Other than bamboo, all the products mentioned are not renewable and leave a hole in the earth as a by-product of their use. Not to mention the energy used and pollution created to make them.

The EPA’s National Risk Management Research Laboratory developed the Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA). The goal of LCA is to compare the full range of environmental damages assignable to products and services and to be able to choose the least burdensome one. The term “life cycle” refers to the notion that a fair assessment requires the inclusion of raw material production, manufacture, distribution, use and disposal, including all intervening transportation steps necessary or caused by the products existence. The sum of all those steps – or phases – is the life cycle of the product. The concept can also be used to optimize the environmental performance of a single product or to optimize the environmental performance of a company. Common categories of assessed damages are greenhouse gases (global warming), acidification, smog, ozone layer depletion, eco-toxicological and human-toxicological pollutants, desertification, land use as well as depletion of minerals and fossil fuels.

If the LCA were the sole factor used to determine materials in home construction, most of the dwelling would be constructed from forest related products. A study by the Canadian Wood Council compared the LCA in the construction of three 2400 square foot homes designed primarily in wood, concrete and steel. During the first 20 years of their life span, concrete released 47% more air pollution, 23% more solid wastes, used 81% more resources, emitted 81% more greenhouse gases and discharged 3.5 times more water pollution than wood. Steel released 24% more air pollution, 8% more solid waste, required 26% more energy and discharged 4 times as much water pollution as wood.

From the forest products industry perspective, how much more revenue would have been generated for the industry if every new home built in the U.S. this year had wood floors made from Douglas Fir or Southern Pine lumber, windows made from Ponderosa Pine, Western Red Cedar siding, Spruce fascia, butcher block counter tops and, let’s not forget, wood framing and sheathing?

The Spotted Owl was a mask for the elitist groups who wanted to lock up our national forest during the 1990s. Many of these groups are striving for the same agenda and their anti logging campaign is still alive; they’ve just changed masks. It is time for the industry to renew it efforts to educate the public to the true value of our forests and the products that are produced from them.