May 2022

Looking Back and Ahead: SLB Publishes 2021 Annual Report, Welcomes New Board Members for 2022

The SLB recently released its 2021 Annual Report, which details its work to achieve year-over-year growth in demand and impact for the softwood lumber industry. Since 2012, the SLB and its partners have generated more than 9.8 billion board feet in demand, which equates to an estimated $4.9 billion of incremental revenue and an average return of $39.82 for every $1 invested. In carbon terms, the SLB’s efforts have resulted in more than 25 million metric tons of avoided carbon dioxide emissions since we started measuring in 2014.

As in past years, in 2021, the SLB and its programs met and exceeded targets with regard to codes, communications, conversions, education, and innovations and research. Key accomplishments include:

• The American Wood Council (AWC) facilitated three major wins for wood in the 2024 IBC, including a provision to allow for fully exposed mass timber ceilings in buildings up to 12 stories tall, which represents an incremental opportunity of 1 billion board feet per year.
• Think Wood grew its lead generation and nurturing efforts, increasing its marketing engagements by more than 129%, adding more than 27,000 new contacts, and increasing its sales qualified leads by more than 600% year-over-year.
• WoodWorks influenced 1,700 projects to build with wood, representing 789 million board feet of incremental softwood lumber consumption.
• The SLB operationalized new partnerships to expand installer and construction-management training and increase university-level wood education.
• The SLB entered into a new memorandum of understanding with the USDA focused on growing demand for softwood lumber products. As a first step, the SLB contributed match funding to five USDA Wood Innovations Grants—leveraging our investment by nearly 3-to-1—to support research and implementation of mass timber solutions that will pave the way for more similar projects.

Read about these and the SLB’s other accomplishments in 2021 here.

The SLB is poised to build on this solid foundation, guided by its 14-member 2022 Board of Directors. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack reappointed past Director Marc Brinkmeyer, owner of the Idaho Forest Group, representing the U.S. West region, and appointed Jerome Pelletier, Vice President of the Sawmill Division of J.D. Irving, representing the Canada East region.

Secretary Vilsack also reappointed George Emmerson, Chair of Sierra Pacific Industries, U.S. West; J.D. Hankins II, co-owner and Vice President of Hankins Inc., U.S. South; Brian Luoma, President and CEO of The Westervelt Company, SLB Second Vice Chair; and Brad Thorlakson, President and CEO of Tolko Industries Ltd., Canada West, to their second terms. More information on the SLB’s board and committees can be found here.

The SLB extends its thanks to Secretary Vilsack for appointing a strong slate of directors who reflect the industry’s diversity and extends gratitude to outgoing directors, Kevin Edgson and Todd Payne, for their leadership, service, and commitment.

SLB, Program Partners Join Forces to Promote and Celebrate Wood at 2022 Mass Timber Conference

The SLB and its program partners were front and center in promoting mass timber solutions during the three-day International Mass Timber Conference held in April in Portland, Oregon. Over 2,000 mass timber enthusiasts, 100 exhibitors, and 60 speakers were in attendance.

As a cohost of the conference alongside the Forest Business Network, WoodWorks received prominent brand placement throughout; hosted a preconference clinic on mass timber design, which was attended by more than 200 professionals; moderated or presented at nine sessions, including on preconstruction planning, navigating codes, and mass timber markets; and released many new resources, including the Mass Timber Design Manual Vol. 2 in partnership with Think Wood, and three mass timber business case studies.

In addition:

• The SLB’s Chief Marketing Officer, Ryan Flom, and WoodWorks’ VP of Operations, Bill Parsons, headlined a session discussing the business outlook for mass timber construction and what it will take to capture oncoming opportunities in terms of education, innovation, and action on the part of industry.
• The AWC headlined a session together with the International Code Council on accelerating mass timber code adoptions throughout the 50 states and large jurisdictions.
• SLB Board member Brian Luoma presented during a plenary session on sustainable forestry and harvesting practices.
• Think Wood sponsored multiple areas of the conference, such as the central lounge and poster sessions, and the Think Wood Mobile Tour welcomed hundreds of visitors who were interested to learn about the latest mass timber projects completed and underway in the United States.
• WoodWorks and its Wood Innovation Network (WIN) welcomed more than 200 people at a special dinner, which featured an in-depth discussion with New Land Enterprises, the developer of the 25-story mass timber Ascent project in Milwaukee, currently the world’s tallest wood building.

This year’s conference—the first in-person since 2019—invigorated mass timber experts and newcomers alike, and portends an exciting future for building with mass timber. Read more here.

Timber-Strong Design Build Competition Expands Reach

Now in its fifth year, the Timber-Strong Design Build (TSDB) competition—often a university student’s first experience designing and building with wood—expanded this year to reach more than 125 students from over 20 universities across five regions.

The competition, which since 2018 has been hosted annually by the American Society of Engineers (ASCE) in partnership with the AWC, APA – The Engineered Wood Association, and Simpson Strong-Tie, challenges student teams to design and build sustainable, two-story wood light-framed buildings. The Timber-Strong competition emphasizes building with wood as a completely renewable, carbon-friendly material and is one of several unique design and building challenges ASCE hosts as part of its annual multiday Student Symposia.

For this year’s Timber-Strong competition, participating teams created a building design and accompanying computer model in advance, then built their structures during the symposia. Entrants were judged on a host of design and construction criteria, including the structure’s estimated carbon benefit, which was calculated using WoodWorks’ Carbon Calculator tool.

Timber-Strong was developed in part as a counter program to the Concrete Canoe Competition, which is also hosted by ASCE as part of the Study Symposia. In this competition, student teams build and race canoes built with concrete. In recent years, the competition was sponsored in part by the National Precast Concrete Association (NPCA).

AWC Advances Opportunities for Wood During ICC Group B Hearings

The International Code Council (ICC) recently held its Group B Code Development Hearings in Rochester, New York, during which committees considered proposals affecting the International Residential Code, International Existing Building Code, ICC Performance Code, and the structural provisions of the International Building Code. AWC staff held several influential committee positions at the hearings, including two chairships, and were active across committees in creating and protecting opportunities for wood.

The AWC successfully testified against changes before the Administrative Code Development Committee that would have added criteria for how manufacturers should label products to conform with standards. The proposed language—which was disapproved—was not compatible with the quality assurance process currently used by the wood products industry. The Administrative Code Committee also considered updates to the AWC reference standards, including the National Design Specification® for Wood Construction and the Wood Frame Construction Manual, both of which were recommended for approval.

Under the Residential Building Code Development Committee, which was chaired by an AWC staff member, an AWC-proposed change to add ASTM D8391 for determining the equivalency of wood-based floor assembly fire protection was recommended for approval with a floor modification. The new standard will provide a valuable point of reference for code officials when evaluating alternative products for use on I-joists and trusses. Several changes related to snow- and wind-load maps were also recommended for approval, which will affect the development of future AWC design aids, including the Wood Frame Construction Manual.

The AWC opposition contributed to the nixing of a proposed change that would have required homes being rebuilt outside of wildland-urban interface (WUI) zones, which were destroyed in a WUI event, to be constructed to meet WUI requirements. Local jurisdictions have the authority to designate WUI zones, and thus this change was beyond the building code’s scope.

The ICC will hold additional public hearings on recommended changes in September, followed by final online voting.

The AWC Extends Construction Fire Safety Education to Graduate-Level Students

The AWC’s Fire Service Relations Manager, Ray O’Brocki, recently provided construction fire safety education to 25 students in the Fire Engineering program at Eastern Kentucky University as part of their capstone requirement to graduate. This was the AWC’s first—of hopefully many—foray into graduate-level education and represents another important step in helping to ensure that fire safe practices are well known and followed at all levels of the building industry, from designers to fire officials.

Higher-education students entering design and construction disciplines have been identified by the SLB as an area deserving greater effort. The SLB has previously reported on engagements with architecture and engineering students through Think Wood and WoodWorks. Taking advantage of this opportunity was a way for the AWC to be a compelling influencer of emerging design and construction professionals.

Think Wood Editorial Covers ‘Making Zero-Carbon Homes a Reality’

Although commercial and multifamily buildings have focused on reduced carbon footprints in recent years, the concept is relatively new for homebuilders—especially measuring embodied carbon. Still, low carbon construction ranked at the top in Think Wood’s 2022 Timber Trends survey of more than 500 architecture, engineering, and construction professionals, some of whom design and build single-family homes.

Most homebuilders are familiar with operational carbon, which refers to greenhouse gasses emitted from a home's energy use after it is built. However, fewer are versed in embodied carbon, which is all the energy that went into manufacturing and transporting a home’s building materials as well as emissions associated with physical construction. Right now, a home’s embodied carbon is likely higher than most green-focused homebuilders realize.

The average U.S. home produces 45 kg of CO2 per square meter annually from an operational perspective, according to a 2020 University of Michigan study. But a recent Canadian report found embodied carbon accounted for 250 kg of CO2 per square meter in residential buildings, or more than five times as much. This means that even the most energy-efficient new homes built today have already contributed five years' worth of greenhouse gas emissions to the environment before their first owner moves in.

The good news is that framing homes with wood—which, fortunately, is the dominant method of framing today—offers a lower carbon footprint than other structural materials. Of the three primary structural materials used in construction, manufacturing lumber is the least energy intensive, accounting for comparatively low embodied carbon.

To better understand how residential builders are approaching carbon reductions, Think Wood interviewed Aaron Smith, CEO of Energy & Environmental Building Alliance (EEBA) and GreenSmith Builders; Bill Rectanus, COO of Thrive Home Builders; and Corey Donahue, Co-Founder of Bettr Homes. Read what they had to say about this emerging trend here.

WoodWorks Undertakes WBLCA Tool Analysis

In 2021, WoodWorks undertook a project to better understand how Whole Building Life Cycle Assessments (WBLCAs) are being used by design and construction professionals to make sustainable design decisions and to survey the tools. In Phase 1, they learned that the most significant elements of WBLCA tools driving favorable or unfavorable results for wood are biogenic carbon accounting approaches and end-of-life scenarios and assumptions. Most users do not have the information or knowledge to make educated decisions related to these topics, which can result in sub-optimal results for wood. Some firms are also creating their own internal databases of WBLCA results to establish benchmarks. Without consistent, accurate data going into these analyses, firms may not realize the superior environmental benefits of wood.

There is clearly confusion in this space, and WoodWorks is working collaboratively with other SLB-funded groups to support developers and building designers with relevant and transparent information. With input from Think Wood and AWC, WoodWorks recently published the first two in a series of Expert Tips on this topic—Introduction to Whole Building Life Cycle Assessment (WBLCA) and When to Include Biogenic Carbon in an LCA—and several others will be released this quarter.

WoodWorks Helps Architect Realize Large Light-Frame Affordable Housing Project in California

A structural engineer from Thornton Tomasetti referred a partnering architect from Perkins&Will to WoodWorks when they were working together on the contemporary, 220,000-square-foot Corazon Del Valle Affordable Housing project in Panorama City, California. The architect had extensive experience in building Type I and II nonwood buildings, but was fairly new to light-frame.

The project architect and WoodWorks first convened by video conference to review topics such as floor-to-wall intersection detailing, fire ratings of exterior bearing walls, and nuances of the California Building Code with regard to area calculations for mixed-occupancy buildings. As the design progressed, WoodWorks continued to provide support on topics such as termination of fire and party walls and framing requirements in the vicinity of fire walls.

Thanks to WoodWorks’ support, the project’s design evolved considerably since that initial conversation. Now under construction, Corazon Del Valle includes three structures, each with four or five stories of light-frame construction over a concrete podium, and will ultimately house 180 subsidized apartments as well as ground-floor retail. The project is set to consume the equivalent of more than 1.8 million board feet of softwood lumber.

After the assist, Perkins&Will cited WoodWorks as “an invaluable resource in the design development of this project.”

The Controversial Role of Large Trees in Creating a Sustainable, Renewable Resource Economy

In a recent blog post, SLB collaborator Edie Sonne Hall of Three Trees Consulting considered how Washington state might best meet the IPCC’s call for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 by leveraging its existing large evergreens as part of working forests. Sonne Hall argues that the best way to meet carbon-reduction goals and the needs of a growing population is to adopt a renewable resource economy, which means increasing production of forest products and increasing carbon stocks by growing more trees.

Based on biological rotations of tree species and the financial costs associated with harvesting rotations to optimize reduced emissions, Sonne Hall believes that Washington is well positioned to leverage its existing forests and argues that, as part of its strategy, it should look to harvest older, larger trees to support the wood fiber supply while other tree stands grow. Sonne Hall notes that state inventory analysis shows that there are 500,000 more acres of 80- to 100-year-old trees now than in 2006; while some of these forests will continue to grow, others are overstocked and face elevated risk from fire and disease.

Sonne Hall’s views on harvesting older, larger trees to support a renewable resources–enabled economy are not unanimously held. For example, the Climate Forests Campaign, a coalition of 90 local and national environmental groups including NRDC and the Sierra Club, contends that conserving the United States’ remaining older forests and trees, which store carbon for decades if not centuries, is one of the country’s “most straightforward, impactful, and cost-effective climate solutions.”

Read more from Sonne Hall here.

Rising Home Prices Prompt Some Buyers to Abandon Search

According to NAHB’s Eye On Housing, new single-family home sales dropped in the first quarter of 2022, driven in part by higher mortgage interest rates, higher construction costs, and low inventory that is driving up price. In March alone, federal government data estimated sales of newly built single-family homes at 763,000, which was 8.6% lower than February’s estimate of 835,000 and 12.6% below the March 2021 estimate of 873,000.

Meanwhile, NAHB reports that the median sales price in March 2022 was $436,700, up 3.6% from February 2022 and an incredible 21.4% increase from March 2021.

Separately, NAHB reports that high home prices are prompting a growing number of buyers to abandon their home search altogether. Approximately two-thirds of buyers engaged in finding a home in the first quarter of 2022 had already spent three months or more searching for a home without success. The inability to find an affordable home was the most common reason cited by prospective buyers as to why they had not purchased to date.

While some prospective buyers expect to persist in their search, including by either settling for a smaller home or stretching to buy a more expensive one, one in four of these buyers plan to give up their home search for the time being, up from one in five in mid-2021.

Read more about these trends here and here.

Race to the Top: New Timber Skyscrapers Under Development Around the Globe

Since mass timber’s introduction in the 1990s, designers worldwide have steadily pushed to build bigger and better with wood, including as an effective means to reduce the built environment’s high carbon footprint. The title of “world’s tallest wood building” has quickly shifted hands as taller projects come online, transferring from the nine-story Stadthaus in London (c. 2009) to the 10-story Forté in Melbourne (c. 2012) to the 18-story Mjøstårnet in Norway (c. 2019) and soon to the 25-story Ascent building in Milwaukee in just over a decade.

According to recent reporting from around the globe, Ascent will soon find itself with company in the 20-plus-story range from the following projects, now under development:

• The more-than-30 story Rocket&Tigerli residential building in Switzerland, is scheduled for completion in 2026. Designed by Danish studio Schmidt Hammer Lassen. Rocket&Tigerli will feature a mass timber structural core and load-bearing system and will edge out Mjøstårnet as the world's tallest load-bearing timber building by 14.6 meters.
• A 40-story, 180-meter timber tower in Sydney, Australia, is being developed by tech giant Atlassian and designed by New York–based architects SHoP. The tower, which has already secured government approval, will feature a timber core and, once complete, will be the tallest commercial hybrid timber building in the world.
• The 50-story hybrid residential tower, C6, in Perth, Australia, is being developed by Melbourne-based Grange Development and designed by Elenberg Fraser. Grange recently submitted plans; if successful, the CLT and glulam tower will out top Atlassian’s skyscraper in Sydney by three meters.

James Dibble, a member of C6’s development team, cites climate change and the need to reduce emissions as a key driver for prioritizing mass timber, a commonly held view across these and many other tall mass timber projects. According to Dibble, “Timber as a building material has been around for centuries, but only recently has mass timber construction and fabrication methods made it a viable option en masse. . . . [C6] represents the future of what is possible, except we will deliver it now.”