Designing with American Hardwoods: A Sustainable, Versatile Material Choice

This course is no longer active
[ Page 5 of 6 ]  previous page Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 next page
Advertorial course provided by The Hardwood Council

LEED AND CERTIFICATION SYSTEMS

Even with a strong grounding in the properties and origins of materials, architects may refer to certification systems, rating standards and assessment techniques in evaluating products and materials. However, these tools may be incomplete.

The U.S. Green Building Council's LEED guidelines are an evolving effort to set common standards of green measurement in areas as diverse as water efficiency, energy and atmosphere impact, material and resource use, and indoor environmental quality.

Although not intended as a product evaluation tool, LEED standards favor Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification for wood products despite the extremely limited availability of FSC-approved hardwoods anywhere in the world, including the U.S.

Ideally, certification offers reassurance that a product has some level of sustainable merit. However, certifications can become outdated as forest products, conditions and practices change, and not all that's sustainable is certified. Conversely, many forests and forest products meet certification standards even though they have not gone through the formal process.

American hardwood sources are a case in point. Private individuals and families own three quarters of U.S. hardwood forests. According to the U.S. Forest Service, their record of sustainable management spans more than 50 years. However, most do not participate in the fee-based, third-party certification programs established in the 1990s. In fact, less than five percent of the hardwood forestland in the U.S. is certified under any system, including FSC, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), and the American Tree Farm program.

As a result, although architects will find sustainable locally-sourced hardwoods, most of the material will not be certified. While all LEED guidelines are being revisited, the FSC preference is unlikely to change soon. Similarly, without a realistic approach to complex hardwood supply chain and chain-of-custody issues, the U.S. hardwood certification situation is unlikely to change dramatically.

As products proliferate and China and South Asia dominate manufacturing, the variables in assessment detail become increasingly cumbersome. An increasing number of products and materials will be difficult to handle with traditional evaluation tools.

According to Dent, "We're still lacking the fundamental knowledge. We're lacking the terms, and also the ‘realistics.' There are some great ideas about using recycled and sustainable materials, but you've got to get a healthy dose of realism there as well."

Jill Kowalski, AIA, LEED AP, director of sustainable design at Philadelphia-based EwingCole, says there's a problem when worldwide product sourcing meets the detailed demands of life cycle analysis. In a 2005 Material Matters interview, she observes, "When you're comparing systems, it's more straight-forward. But when you start applying it to products and materials, where there are parts and pieces from all over the globe, it's complicated. The question becomes, ‘How far back do I take it?'" In most cases, taking it all the way back is impossible.

 

[ Page 5 of 6 ]  previous page Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 next page
Originally published in Architectural Record.
Originally published in October 2005

Notice

Academies