President’s Better Buildings Initiative: Good for Wood?
On a visit to Penn State this week, President Obama outlined his Better Buildings Initiative, his plan to increase energy efficiency in businesses-setting his sights high with a goal of making commercial buildings 20 percent more energy efficient over the next decade.
The initiative includes new tax incentive proposals, financing for commercial retrofits, a “Race to Green” program, and programs that focus on higher learning institutions and workforce training.
AFF looks forward to more details of the Obama’s proposal-what a great opportunity to tout the environmental and energy efficient benefits of wood, especially wood from family forests! Wood products are one of the most environmentally friendly building materials, especially when compared with other materials like steel and concrete.
Using wood for construction results in less carbon emissions, reduced energy use, and reduced pollution. In fact, construction of a wood-frame home used 17 percent less energy than the matching steel-frame home and 16 percent less energy than the matching concrete-frame home. The energy consumption measured included not just electricity, but also diesel and fuel oil to extract and haul materials, natural gas to generate steam in lumber mills, and electricity for steel mills. Wood products also continue to store carbon, which helps mitigate climate change. To learn more, view the Consortium for Research on Renewable Industrial Materials fact sheet PDFs.
With strong wood products markets, more family and other private forest owners, who own more than two-thirds of the nation’s forests, are able to keep their forests as forests. Strong wood products markets also give forest owners the means to continue to practice sustainable forest management with the income they generate from selling their timber for use in wood products. This helps to keep more than 10 million U.S. family forest owners on the land so they can continue to provide the clean water and air, wildlife habitat, and recreational opportunities we all enjoy.
Wood has the opportunity to be part of the Better Buildings Initiative because of the great benefits the material provides. Unfortunately, some current federal and state policies do not recognize the benefits of wood as an energy efficient and environmentally friendly building material. This discrepancy is why the American Forest Foundation continues to work to be sure wood has seat at the table.
