Gedar lives the green life

flunoens. Ar rHE URGTNG of architects and consumers, IDare demanding materials that stand up to construction and environmental scrutiny. They want materials with a green reputation as solid as wood is durable.

Turns out wood meets both criteria. Wood products, desired for their beauty and durability yet sometimes dismissed as a green choice, are also the most environmentally friendly.

A recent life cycle assessment (LCA) comparing western red cedar to non-wood decking and siding alternatives found that natural wood creates lower greenhouse gas emissions and allows for recycling and energy recovery opportunities that cut methane gas emissions in landfills.

"As green building regulations become the standard in building, consumers who previously favored more 'maintenance-free' materials as their siding and decking products of choice will need to consider alternatives such as western red cedar to help lessen their environmental footprint," said green consultant John Wagner.

WESTERN RED CEDAR siding performed best when compared against non-wood alternatives like vinyl, fiber cement, and brick in a third-party, cradle-to-grave assessment of environmental impact.

Although green qualities have not yet become the deciding factor, environmental impact matters more and more. Consumers want to live beautifully, but are also weighing environmental sensitivity alongside durability and beauty in the building materials they choose.

Options that combine all three qualities provide the most value to consumers-as well as to architects, who are trying to balance sometimes competing interests, and builders, who are concerned about product performance.

However, getting the whole picture about a product's environmental impact and figuring out which are the most environmentally friendly can be challenging. Comparisons are often based on limited information or only a narrow set of criteria.

Truly sustainable building efforts consider a product's manufacturing-to-disposal environmental footprint. Careful life cycle examination provides a fuller environmental appraisal.

A recent LCA by FPlnnovations-Forintek, Canada's Ieading forestry research laboratory, took a cradle-to-grave look at environmental impacts of various building materials. It compared residential decking and siding applications such as composite decking, brick, fiber cement, vinyl and western red cedar. Complex analysis considered such factors as resource use, water use, energy use, transportation and waste created.

Cedar substantially outperformed in every decking category and fared best overall as a siding choice. The assessment ranked western red cedar as the "most sustainable building material."

Alternative building materials, often lauded for durability, create more environmental life-cycle burden than wood, according to a third-party study commissioned by the Western Red Cedar Lumber Association. As an example, a western red cedar deck could be built twice-or moreover its service life and still outperform composite decking alternatives.

"Knowing that the LCA proved alternative building materials create more environmental burden and consume more nonrenewable fossil fuel during their life cycles helps me feel confident in recommending western red cedar as the most sustainable building tool for my clients and consumers everywhere," Wagner said.