Green Building Overview: Opportunities for wood products Chris Knowles Assistant Professor Oregon Wood Innovation Center Oregon State University
Green building in Oregon Projects - 2010 Projects - 2008 28 Certified 13 Certified 1 Bronze 1 Bronze 50 Silver 17 Silver 110 Gold 38 Gold 23 Platinum (298 nationally) 2 Platinum (65 nationally)
Responsible Material Selection Identify gaps in information about greening of structural building materials Focus on concrete, steel, wood Interviewed Architects Engineers Builders Developers
What did we find? LEED most credible system
LEED most credible system “Portland specifically and Pacific Northwest, is so dominated by LEED that frankly even if Green Globes was a distinctly better system, which I would argue it probably isn’t, you would still, because of market courses, want to do LEED.” – architect
What did we find? LEED most credible system Definition of sustainability
How is sustainability defined? “it’s confusing to talk about green materials because we’re talking about materials that we’ve always used, we’re just using them in a different way.” - architect “Sustainability is about synergies, durability is a top priority. Longer life spans. We are building for only 40-50 year lifespans.” - contractor “Need clearer definition of “green” and “sustainable”. Green = less bad. Sustainable = actually sustainable over long term. LEED does a great job of creating green buildings. Especially at the platinum level you get a building that is a lot less bad.” – architect
What did we find? LEED most credible system Definition of sustainability People genuinely feel that wood is good
People feel that wood is good “I have looked at the embodied energy of building materials, for instance aluminum is very high. When you take an aluminum beam, a steel beam, a concrete beam and a wood beam – wood really shines.” – architect “In Portland, wood is the most economical for 6 stories or less.” – architect “ I always assumed, especially 10 years ago, that homogenous lumber was by far more sustainable than concrete or steel” – architect
There are some negative views “Most of the lumber in Oregon meets the Green Globes and I would say it’s probably not very sustainable.” – architect
What did we find? LEED most credible system Definition of sustainability People genuinely feel that wood is good Structural material selected based on: Code Cost Building type Environmental impact not a factor
Structural material selection “Building systems decided by cost and time required to erect. Once structural system is picked, then can do some green modifications to it.” – architect “The system for a building is usually determined by the function of the building and budget. Then we work green around that.” – engineer “So I would say that it’s very rare that a project would determine its structural systems based on its greenness.” – architect
What did we find? LEED most credible system Definition of sustainability People genuinely feel that wood is good Structural material selected based on: Certification matters
Certification matters “Lots of skepticism. Need 3 rd party verification for everything.” – architect “It’s not easy to determine the recycled content in steel because it’s coming from China…it’s coming from all over…” – contractor “If something is certified and if there is a third party certification, not the industry’s own certification. Letters from manufacturers serves to me as the second tier, because I assume that if the company has issued those letters about certain aspects of their products being green, that they are probably trying to be pretty truthful. Just like with the green-e certified power or FSC certified wood where we know that it’s a third-party certification that’s probably the most reliable evidence that that product is green.” – engineer
What did we find? LEED most credible system Definition of sustainability People genuinely feel that wood is good Structural material selected based on: Certification matters Air quality is important
Air quality is important “…but for indoor air quality, in particular off gassing, we just don’t know. No one knows how two chemicals react once they off gas. We just don’t know that. So some of the sick building syndrome problems … we just don’t know the answers to those yet.” - architect “With the subfloor for wood frame building and OSB having UF in it. That is a decent performing product that we use so that it doesn’t cause performance problems like swelling, buckling, delamination which was a problem in the past. Now we have a product that works but we’re being cautioned not to use it because of formaldehyde.” – architect “And when you get into composite lumber than it brings up the whole VOC and there is a disconnect between what people are calling green. It might be FSC, but it might still off gas… so we’ve run into issues with that as well.” – contractor
What did we find? LEED most credible system Definition of sustainability People genuinely feel that wood is good Structural material selected based on: Certification matters Air quality is important Many opportunities for research
Opportunities for research Designers have positive views of wood – how do we take advantage of this? Demand for formaldehyde free adhesives Research to show feasibility of larger wood buildings Continued work in life cycle analysis
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