The nation's housing crunch has been a buzzkill for timber producers, but there is a glimmer of hope in one particular segment of the industry - the growing market for certified wood products.
Green building materials, those from sustainable managed forests in the West, have developed a strong and growing market, according to industry leaders.
Donn Zea, president of the California Forest Products Commission, said the attention on products from sustainable forestry practices is the silver lining in an otherwise dismal market.
"I have not seen anything be more potentially beneficial to telling the story of forestry to the American public and to getting the industry to a place where it can operate in a way that people understand why we do what we do and that the products we provide are without comparison in terms of being green," Zea said.
There are several major forest certification programs - the Forest Stewardship Council, Sustainable Forestry Initiative and the American Tree Farm System. In addition, there are several green building standards that are driving the marketplace, Zea said. They include the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design or LEED, Green Globes and the National Association of Homebuilders standard. All are competing in the marketplace and all have good points to them, he said
"Any kind of certification standard that seeks to achieve sustainability and, in our case, green building practices, goes way beyond just materials," Zea said. "Any kind of certification has to employ a scientifically based lifecycle analysis program. In other words, you can't just pick one issue out of a portfolio of issues to drive your claim to sustainability. You have to include all issues - good, bad and indifferent in marketing a sustainable product."
Certification standards in California consider not only how trees are grown and harvested, but also their carbon footprint and the energy required to process them into useable products.
Zea said timber provides many unique benefits - timber products, fire suppression, water quality protection, green energy from waste produced in the milling process, and carbon sequestration.
Mark Pawlicki, director of governmental affairs for Sierra Pacific Industries in Redding, a major timber company that has been certified under the Sustainable Forestry Initiative for the past eight years, agrees certification of wood products is catching on.
"There's no question that buyers are asking for it and architects are designing to it, but so far there is no difference in price," Pawlicki said. "But the requests are coming in more and more for certified wood, which is fine with us because we're certified."
As the market for certified wood has grown, so too have the number of programs to keep pace with demand in the United States and abroad.
Pawlicki said small timber owners have the American Tree Farm System and Canada has its own program, the Canadian Standards Association. There is also a group in Europe known as the Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification. That program recognizes different programs around the world, including SFI and Canadian standards.
"So it's a mish-mash of certification programs, but they do compete against each other," Pawlicki said. "By far in North America, SFI is the largest and it is fully independent."
Greg Moss, owner of Moss Lumber and Hardware Company in Northern California, offers customers some green wood products but most of his inquiries for certified wood are special orders.
There is discussion within the industry to standardize the definitions and address confusion in the marketplace about green building methods and forestry practices.
"A lot of this discussion is wrapped around trying to standardize what it means," he said. "You're going to see some mandates come down from building departments as more uniformity arises, but as it stands right now, it is mostly government agencies that are using the LEED system, but it is a very small percentage of the total building."
Certification programs can range from general practices that are covered by the American Tree Farm System to very prescriptive measures that timber owners, mills and manufacturers must strictly follow.
"It gets all the way up to controversial issues. Some people want to make hiring and firing practices to be part of the certification," Moss said. "That's the battle right now is to get the uniformity."The Capital Press
