APA Highlights Benefits of Wood Building Materials in New Guide

The environmental benefits of North American wood products are presented in a new guide from APA – The Engineered Wood Association. Sustainable Buildings, Sustainable Future, Form F305, contains facts and figures related to the sustainability of the forest resource, forest certification, life cycle assessment, and Environmental Product Declarations. The guide also compares energy consumption in the manufacture of wood, steel and concrete products, and provides a comparison of the net carbon impact of the building materials.

Sustainable Buildings, Sustainable Future also includes an in-depth look at how sustained demand for wood products fosters a cycle of growth in North American forests. As a result of forest management and extensive replanting, timber volume has steadily increased during the past 50 years. There are more trees in the United States today than there were in the early 1900s, according to a National Report on Sustainable Forests, published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.