The AWC and WoodWorks co-hosted their first-ever Climate Week event, Building with Wood: Nature’s Climate Solution.

Each year, as the United Nations General Assembly comes to an end, New York City kicks off Climate Week, a week of hundreds of climate- and sustainability-focused events across the city. This year’s theme, It’s Time, highlighted the urgent need for climate action, specifically in the areas of energy, the built environment, and finance.

This year, the American Wood Council (AWC) and WoodWorks co-hosted their first-ever Climate Week event, Building with Wood: Nature’s Climate Solution. The event featured an introduction to mass timber, a panel discussion on the entirety of mass timber’s lifecycle, and concluded with a networking reception. The panel discussion was led by Katie Fernholz, President of Dovetail Partners; Alexis Feitel, Team Carbon Unit Director at KL&A Engineers and Builders; and Sandra Lupien, Director of MassTimber@MSU.

The event proved to be a success with over 80
in-person attendees as well as additional online attendees. This event is an example of the AWC’s lead role in ensuring that wood products are properly recognized for their low embodied carbon and significant stored biogenic carbon benefits.

Building with Wood was one of many Climate Week events focused on the climate benefits of wood products. Earlier that day at the same venue, the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) hosted the final presentations from the seven teams of the inaugural Mass Timber Studio funded by the SLB and USDA Forest Service. The NYCEDC also announced plans to field a second cohort of teams who will receive another $29,000 grant each in 2025, also partially funded by the SLB and USDA Forest Service.