June 29, 2021
Wood Presents a Solution to the Building Industry’s Carbon Challenge | SLB 2021 Q1 Report Now Available
The Softwood Lumber Board (SLB) recently published its 2021 Q1 Report, which recaps the SLB’s progress in growing incremental demand for the softwood lumber industry and demonstrates how the SLB and its funded programs—the American Wood Council (AWC), Think Wood, and WoodWorks—are aggressively working to communicate and to amplify wood’s environmental benefits with science and verified research.
Now, as both the public and private sector coalesce around climate action, it is more important than ever that we continue to amplify wood’s environmental benefits with science and verified research. It is critical for building design and construction professionals, developers, and their clients to understand wood’s role as a leading climate solution.
Highlights from Q1 include:
- The American Wood Council (AWC) testified on numerous proposals during the International Code Council (ICC) Group A Code Development Hearings. This work is helping to advance proposals to increase the allowable area of exposed mass timber ceilings, add two new wood fire-resistance-rated floor/ceiling assemblies to code, and delay the installation of costly noncombustible topping on CLT floors during construction.
- Think Wood and WoodWorks released the Mass Timber Design Manual, which to date has over 8,500 downloads and led to the identification of over 130 potential building projects.
- WoodWorks directly converted 111 projects, with 416 projects being influenced, representing nearly 20 million square feet of wood construction and an incremental 188 million board feet of demand.
- 450 new users joined The Wood Institute in Q1, and users completed 719 courses, for a total of 940 learning hours.
The SLB continues to support specifier education as a key investment to enable the expanded use of softwood lumber products. The SLB is now expanding its education program to include postsecondary and graduate programs in its outreach to help design and building professionals, developers, and contractors discover offerings, reach new audiences, and seed innovation.
In partnership with the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), the SLB is excited to launch several architecture-focused programs, including Timber in the City: Urban Habitats Competition and the Timber Education Prize.
Additionally, the SLB is continuing to focus on the Wood Institute, which was launched in July 2020, by adding course content daily and nurturing users to develop leads for potential project conversions. With the SLB’s growing portfolio of education offerings, Simon Hyoun recently joined the SLB team as the Senior Director of Education, Events, and Communications. Hyoun spent the last 17 years with Zonda (formerly Hanley Wood), where he led marketing, client services, and editorial development efforts.