Nearly two-thirds of Think Wood audiences said that interaction with campaign resources increased their likelihood of specifying wood, demonstrating the campaign’s value in positively influencing perception of wood and conversion to wood construction. That’s one of the key findings of the annual Intent to Specify survey that asks users at two engagement stages—less engaged prospects and more engaged priority leads—about their current and future use of wood structural systems.

Think Wood’s most-engaged audience remains very likely to use wood, with most respondents still reporting a 50% or 100% likelihood. This suggests that higher engagement with Think Wood correlates with a lasting appreciation for wood systems. Think Wood will continue to use this survey data, along with ongoing research, to tailor content offerings to architects, engineers, and developers and maximize engagement and conversions.

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THINK WOOD FEATURE

Think Wood Campaign Increases Likelihood of Wood Specification

Resources and profiles featuring single-family light-frame wood homes continue to garner strong engagement across both commercial and residential audiences. May saw the launch of the Single-Family Home LookBook, featuring seven residential projects with detailed images and floor plans. This 80-page resource quickly became Q2's most engaging content, showcasing innovative uses of softwood lumber (beyond simple framing) that demonstrate that even in a market where wood is dominant, there is still room to use additional lumber in appearance, cladding, and decking applications. In addition, two residential profiles received strong engagement in the Think Wood newsletter: a bucolic retreat called The Buchanan Riverhouse and the carbon-negative Cross Cabin. 

Think Wood continues to optimize its email welcome series for residential contractors, boosting open rates by 5% this quarter and successfully capturing the attention of this hard to reach, on-the-go audience with features about innovative uses of wood in single-family homes.

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THINK WOOD FEATURE

Impactful Single-Family Resources and Project Profiles Drive Engagement with Residential Audiences

The office market remains one of the strongest opportunities for lumber market growth, with an incremental volume potential in the office/bank sector of 345 MM BF to 413 MM BF of lumber by 2035, according to the Forest Economics Advisors’ 2024 U.S. Outlook for the SLB. A new Think Wood video and webinar continue to educate architects, engineers, and developers on the benefits of wood in office construction, emphasizing improved occupant experience, sustainability, and project value, with visually compelling content. 

The video features the T3 ATX Eastside and Houston Endowment Headquarters mass timber office projects, with their design and development teams sharing insights and lessons on how they leveraged wood to enhance their work.

Along with the video, the Think Wood-sponsored webinar, “Mass Timber as a Solution for Commercial Offices,” featured three leading architects discussing innovative wood systems in commercial projects. The event drew over 700 attendees, and these qualified leads received follow-up resources from Think Wood and WoodWorks.

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THINK WOOD FEATURE

Video and Webinar Showcase Wood’s Potential in High-Opportunity Office Market

WoodWorks is leading efforts to highlight the embodied carbon benefits of wood through Whole Building Life Cycle Assessments (WBLCAs), a critical tool for comparing the environmental impacts of different construction materials. By working closely with design teams and providing guidance on WBLCA practices, WoodWorks ensures that wood's carbon advantages are accurately represented in these assessments.

WoodWorks is also developing its own life cycle assessment studies with KL&A comparing wood construction to other materials. The series introduction and the first study featuring Return to Form, a 12-story mass timber multifamily building, have been completed, and three more studies are in the works. The objective of the series is to give project teams a license to operate with wood — confidence that building with wood from sustainably managed forests is carbon positive, often significantly so. The studies address the concerns of building designers and give them confidence that designing with wood is a sustainable choice that benefits the environment.

In addition to these efforts, WoodWorks has engaged with software providers including Building Transparency (EC3 and TallyLCA), One Click LCA, and Athena Sustainable Materials to clarify how wood industry data is integrated into their datasets and utilized by the AEC community. Ensuring that these tools accurately reflect wood's carbon data is essential for fair comparisons with other materials in WBLCAs.

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WOODWORKS FEATURE

Life Cycle Data Makes the Sustainability Case for Wood Structural Systems

Mass timber construction has found a champion in an unexpected audience: ironworkers. WoodWorks has placed nine mass timber installation training mockups with ironworkers in Southern California, Nevada, Arizona, Seattle, and New York City, with plans to expand to nearly two dozen locations nationwide. The group is organizing a comprehensive mass timber installation training program, with the WoodWorks Construction Management Program Manager scheduled to present at the inaugural train-the-trainer event at the ironworkers National Training Fund's (NTF) national training center in October. The ironworkers now require that regional training centers employ instructors trained through this program. Regional classes at training centers are slated to begin in late 2024 or early 2025, following the completion of instructor training.

The new ironworker locations in development will join a growing network of training centers nationwide, alongside those for carpenters, college partners, and hardware manufacturers. To date, 1,300 participants have completed 24,000 hours of installation training—helping to eliminate a common barrier to mass timber construction by ensuring GCs and their subcontractors feel confident working with the material.

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WOODWORKS FEATURE

Ironworkers Embrace WoodWorks
Mass Timber Construction Training

The rising demand for educational facilities presents a significant opportunity for the lumber industry, with a potential market opportunity of 1.7 BBF, according to an outlook prepared for the SLB by Forest Economic Advisors. WoodWorks has supported 169 school projects since 2015, with a noticeable shift toward mass timber in recent years. Between 2021 and 2024, approximately 80% of reported projects used mass timber, with numerous university projects specifying the material.

Despite challenges such as budget constraints and perceived concerns about durability, the push for sustainability, aesthetics, and biophilia continues to drive mass timber adoption in schools, while cost is a major advantage for schools designed with light-frame construction. The sector is off to a strong start in 2024, with 14 projects already underway, signaling continued growth and opportunity for the lumber industry. This promising market-expanding trend is demonstrated by the Mass Timber Competition-winning project Evergreen Charter School. The 85,000-square-foot, five-story hybrid CLT education facility with biophilic design elements is planned for completion by the end of 2024.

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WOODWORKS FEATURE

WoodWorks Pursues Growth Opportunities for Wood in New School Construction

Expanding on a design studio sponsorship that began in 2023, SLB Education is integrating wood education into architecture school curricula by funding field trips and hands-on experiences that highlight the design advantages of wood.

For the “Time for Timber” course at the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture, students built full-scale prototypes of wood structural systems for a real-world project using softwood lumber.
As a result, students achieved a better understanding of constructability challenges and how the components come together in the real world. SLB Education also sponsored a field trip for a Keene State College design studio to visit a New Hampshire lumber mill. The course’s instructor, Randall Walter, leads the project team on the 2023 Mass Timber Competition-winning Up@310 Lofts. Additional studio sponsorships at Texas A&M University and Rice University are planned for the fall semester.

Another way SLB Education is bringing wood education into postsecondary classrooms is through the development of a virtual reality app preloaded onto state-of-the-art equipment and loaned to architecture and engineering faculty. During class instruction, students can use the equipment to immerse themselves in a virtual recreation of a real mass timber building. The virtual experience is an ideal way to bring to life immersive, high-detail technical content supported by narrative elements. Alongside studio sponsorships, SLB Education is preparing students for modern architectural challenges and nurturing a generation of architects passionate about wood solutions.

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EDUCATION FEATURE

SLB Sponsorships Bring Wood,
Real and Virtual, Into the Classroom

The Wood Institute achieved exceptional growth in Q2, expanding its reach to secondary audiences like general contractors without sacrificing its primary focus on architects, designers, and engineers. More contractors created accounts in Q2 than in any previous quarter thanks to increasingly targeted content tailored to their needs. For example, a construction-focused course, “Safeguarding Buildings During Construction: Fire & Life Safety Best Practices,” was new to the Wood Institute’s top five courses this quarter. Alongside the growth in contractors, the Wood Institute maintained strong engagement with its core user groups. 

Additionally, the Wood Institute successfully balanced course completions across the year, reducing the steep Q4 peak and boosting productivity in Q1 through Q3. This strategic approach has allowed the Institute to not only broaden its audience but also enhance its overall effectiveness throughout the year. The Wood Institute’s ability to grow its secondary audience while maintaining primary engagement and stabilizing course completions is a testament to its thoughtful and effective management strategy, positioning it as a leading resource for professionals in the design and construction industry.

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EDUCATION FEATURE

Education Produces Exceptional Growth for the Wood Institute

The SLB is amplifying its impact on the construction industry by investing in wood education, targeting the next generation of architects, engineers, and contractors. While incorporating more lumber into our built environment may end on construction sites, it begins in classrooms, where wood design education is often lacking. An SLB audit revealed that nearly 60% of post-secondary programs offer little to no exposure to wood systems due to a scarcity of qualified faculty. To address this, the SLB, with support from the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, launched a series of wood-focused faculty development workshops.

Building on the success of three workshops in 2023, the SLB expanded to five in 2024, including sessions at Oregon State, Clemson, Auburn, and Michigan State, with another planned at Cal Poly Pomona for later this year. So far, 80 faculty members from 60 schools have participated, greatly enhancing their knowledge and enthusiasm for wood solutions. These immersive three-day workshops equip faculty with hands-on experience in forestry, wood design, and construction, bridging the gap between theory and practice. By the end of 2025, SLB will have trained nearly 300 new faculty members, potentially reaching 6% of all architecture and engineering faculty in the U.S., significantly boosting wood design education nationwide. Industry leaders who currently serve as advisors or educators at post-secondary institutions are encouraged to contact the SLB’s Reed Kelterborn, Director of Education, at rkelterborn@softwoodlumberboard.org to coordinate our efforts.

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EDUCATION FEATURE

Additional Faculty Workshops Drive
Wood Education Nationwide

The AWC has launched a new app that helps expand markets while enhancing fire safety on construction sites. The Construction Fire Safety Checklist (CFS Checklist) app, developed in collaboration with the Construction Fire Safety Coalition, offers a comprehensive fire inspection checklist that aligns with the 2021 International Fire Code. This tool supports builders and inspectors by promoting safe construction practices and ensuring code compliance.

By reducing construction fires, the app helps mitigate fire-resistance fears about wood construction and opens opportunities for market expansion. The app's user-friendly interface encourages proactive risk identification, benefiting fire inspectors, building inspectors, and construction managers alike.

In the first month, the app has been downloaded by over 600 users, thanks to a targeted digital ad campaign aimed at fire and building officials. Available for both Apple and Android devices, the CFS Checklist app is now accessible on the Apple and Google Play stores, providing a streamlined, shareable solution for maintaining safety on construction sites.

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AWC FEATURE

Construction Fire Safety Checklist App Protects Wood’s Reputation

The AWC is continuing to strengthen the lumber industry's environmental data through comprehensive life cycle assessments and the development of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs). With a $6 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency, funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, the AWC is enhancing transparency and carbon data in wood products. The grant will support projects over five years, including an EPD generator, funding for mills to develop EPDs, and education programs on whole building life cycle assessments.

The AWC's ongoing efforts, including the annual Life Cycle Survey, ensure that the lumber industry can provide the sustainability data that the design industry requires to specify materials. This year’s survey, launched on August 1, is now open to non-AWC member companies and mills, thanks to a Wood Innovations Grant from the USDA Forest Service.
The expanded survey aims to strengthen the industry’s environmental data and is being used to produce regional EPDs for structural wood products, addressing growing market and regulatory needs for transparent environmental performance reports.

The AWC encourages all U.S. mills to participate, as their contributions directly enhance the industry’s commitment to low-carbon building materials and data transparency. The AWC has created a tutorial video that walks through each section of the survey, explaining updates for this year. If you would like to participate, contact Anna Ostrander at aostrander@awc.org.

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AWC FEATURE

$6 Million EPA Grant to Strengthen Industry’s Environmental Data

The AWC made significant progress at a recent International Code Council hearing in Orlando, advancing key proposals to safeguard and expand wood use in building codes. Notably, the committee approved an AWC proposal to incorporate the new 2024 Fire Design Specification (FDS) for Wood Construction, enhancing fire-resistance standards for wood assemblies. Of the 31 lumber industry opportunities identified, 20 were approved (65%), while 28 of 29 threats to wood markets were disapproved, modified, or withdrawn (97%).

Key recommendations include approval of an AWC proposal clarifying fire resistance rating continuity
for wood-frame platform construction and revising mass timber protection requirements. Additionally,
the approval of new terminology for wildland-urban interface (WUI) construction classes refined material requirements based on fire hazard severity. The AWC will continue its advocacy at the second hearing
in October.

Meanwhile, mass timber code adoption continues to expand with the support of AWC education. As of Q2,
34 states have adopted or are moving toward adopting the 2021 International Building Code (IBC) mass timber provisions, with Minnesota now progressing toward adopting the 2024 IBC with the AWC's guidance. The AWC’s outreach in states like Colorado, Ohio, and Georgia further solidifies mass timber’s growing presence in building codes across the country. Additionally, AWC education to code officials in Florida promotes use of the Florida Mass Timber AMM Guide as a resource for approval of new mass timber construction types through an alternative materials and methods process.

“The AMM Guide is a resource for code officials and designers and is an example of the AWC’s determined efforts to facilitate code official acceptance and approval of new mass timber construction types in accordance with the 2024 I-Codes,” says AWC Vice President of Codes & Regulations Phil Line.

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AWC FEATURE

Building Code Successes Protect and Expand Wood Use in Homes and Buildings