Using Wood as Green Building Material Greatly Benefits the Environment

Green (or “sustainable”) building is the latest trend in the building architecture and construction design industry; building professionals over the world who want to create a long lasting impressions on the future of our planet, are focusing their objectives on creating Eco quality architecture.

What Green Building actually means? In simpler terms, it means the practice of building design, construction and maintenance in such a way that they are sustainable to the environment, energy efficient and “friendly” to the Eco system. Therefore, the green building philosophy comprises of many things such as the building professional must select suitable land sites in terms of energy efficiency, use of green building products,  apply energy saving construction methods & equipments, optimize natural daylight in the building and many other energy saving ideas.

Wood, especially engineered wood flooring and natural eco wood are considered as preferred green building materials today. According to a report from U.S Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service, it is mentioned that wood should be considered as the main building materials in any green building projects.

Some of the reasons are, the use of wood in building materials yields fewer greenhouse gases than other common building materials such as concrete and steel. Wood will usually stored “avoidable carbon dioxide” and prevent them from leaking into the atmosphere.

Producing wood materials require less energy and are therefore energy efficient. According to a report from “Forests for the Next Century”, a nonprofit organization which strongly supports protections of worldwide forests; it explains why wood is more energy efficient than others as it offers more product for much less energy. “It takes 5 times energy more to produce a ton of cement, 14 times more energy to produce a ton of glass, 25 times more energy to produce a ton of steel and 126 times more energy to produce a ton of aluminum,” quoted from the report.

Sometimes, the building professionals may get confused on the difference between renewable and recyclable resources for the building materials. In fact, he or she should consider the combination of both with the main focus on renewable resources. This is because renewable resources are natural, such as solar energy from sunlight and wind energy; whereas recycled materials are materials such as re-processed concrete or aluminum products which in fact can contribute to relatively more energy waste to the environment. Hence, choosing of natural wood materials from well managed forests should be considered as wood is naturally renewable resource as well. For a better indication in terms of selecting quality eco wood products, the property owners or builders can select natural wood products with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) mark.  

Engineered wood flooring is a great product in terms of being a sustainable flooring product for green building architecture projects today. Laurel M. Sheppard, a renowned writer in the worldwide building industry, has mentioned about the acetylating process of Accoya® wood, in which produces very little waste and minimize the effects of greenhouse emission. This in turn makes Accoya®, the first natural timber with the most Eco labels such as Cradle to Cradle^CM Gold Certification and FSC mark.

Eco architecture is increasingly getting its significance in the building and construction industry today. Education of green building is definitely a must in securing a sustainable and everlasting future for our children.