| More and more architects and builders are asking about the environmental costs of the building materials available to them today. Because materials like steel and concrete now are competing with wood as building materials, the question is valid, though a bit complicated, since no building is all one material and environmental qualities are among several considerations in material selection. Several studies during the past decade—examining factors like overall energy use, CO2 and other emissions and water demand in the construction, extraction and manufacturing phases—have found that wood performs better. |
A Life Cycle Assessment
A study in the December 2002 Journal of Forestry measured the environmental consequences of wood, concrete and steel measured in “life cycle assessments,” which is a way of measuring energy consumed and waste generated in all phases of the materials, from manufacture through eventual disposal. The chart here shows a breakdown of the embodied energy (direct or indirect energy required to produce one unit of material) in each type of house.
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Wood vs. Steel
A multi-year Canadian study compared some of the environmental effects of two 10- by 100-foot wall assemblies, one made from wood and the other from steel. This graph shows energy use and water consumption in the extraction, manufacturing and construction phases for the two materials.
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