WoodWorks Blog

Using Wood to Earn Points in Green Rating Systems

Two recent articles shed light on a common question received by WoodWorks technical directors—How can wood be used to earn points in rating systems such as LEED and Green Globes?

Wood Rates: How Wood Products Stack Up in Green Rating Systems – Featured on the Architectural Record website, this article builds on a recent study indicating that only 20 percent of credits in commonly used green rating systems relate to wood. It examines how wood is incorporated into the major rating systems, how wood’s green potential is being under-recognized, and how rating systems are likely to evolve—e.g., through the integration of life cycle assessment (LCA) and environmental product declarations. Readers may also earn a CEU credit for taking a short online test. Read the article

LEED Should Recognize All Credible North American Certification Programs – The second article appears on the Sustainable Industries website and focuses on a hot topic at the US Green Building Council—namely, whether LEED should recognize wood certified as sustainable by programs other than FSC. Written by the president of the American Wood Council, it offers one of the most insightful explanations we’ve seen regarding how wood’s positive attributes are being ignored and the fact that wood is being put at a disadvantage to environmentally inferior materials. Read the article

Here at WoodWorks, we often point out that wood is the only building material with independent certification programs in place to demonstrate that products have come from a sustainably managed resource and that no other products are held to the same level of standard.

Forest certification is an important part of most green building rating systems, but most recognize that there are a variety of credible certification programs. Green Globes, for example, awards points for lumber and timber panel products certified through the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), American Tree Farm System (ATFS), and Canada’s National Standard for Sustainable Forest Management, CAN/CSA-Z809 (CSA). All of these systems have been endorsed by the world’s largest certification organization, the global Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC).

Submitted by Dwight Yochim, National Director