A recent article by the Oregon Journal of Commerce sought to include the concrete industry’s perspective on the largely unsubstantiated safety claims by the wood industry about its Cross Laminated Timber product commonly known as CLTs. (If you haven’t heard about CLTs and the excitement they seem to elicit among architects you can read the article here.) While the federal government and governments in Washington State and Oregon are working to tilt the scales in the favor of more widespread use of CLTs under the banner of jobs creation, NRMCA staff members are taking the fight directly to the wood industry on both the legislative front and the media front.

For years, the wood industry has sought to promote its own sustainable forestry metric – the Sustainable Forestry Initiative or SFI – claiming that it could adequately police the impacts of logging without the need for independent, third-party verification. The United States Green Building Council didn’t buy it and continues to insist on the more rigorous and independent Forest Stewardship Council or FSC certification. The wood industry is taking the same approach in its attempts to validate the safety of CLTs. The industry’s own research and claims would have one believe that skyscrapers of wood are a safe alternative to concrete and steel. Unfortunately for the wood industry, a fire last year in Nottingham, England, of a nearly completed CLT academic building has dramatically undermined its claims.

NRMCA members should be on the lookout for news articles about CLTs and work with NRMCA staff to push back these erroneous claims of safety.