Building Sustainably: Mass Timber

This fact sheet describes mass timber as a class of engineered wood building materials that offers a lower carbon footprint and potential cost-competitiveness compared to steel and concrete. It outlines the environmental benefits, construction advantages, and the current state of mass timber adoption and policy support in the United States.

• Mass timber is an umbrella term for engineered wood materials created by layering and bonding wood, including cross-laminated timber, nail-laminated timber, glue-laminated timber, laminated strand lumber, and laminated veneer lumber. It is strong enough for large structures, exemplified by a 25-story apartment building opened in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 2022.
• Using mass timber instead of concrete and steel can reduce emissions associated with building materials by 13% to 26.5%. Environmental benefits include the sequestration and storage of carbon from the atmosphere and the promotion of healthy forest management by incentivizing the removal of small-diameter trees that pose wildfire hazards.
• Mass timber construction offers several operational advantages: it can be faster, quieter, and less temperature-sensitive than other methods, and it may be more fire-resistant than traditional wood construction and better at handling earthquakes than other high-rise construction.
• The mass timber industry presents economic and workforce opportunities. The global cross-laminated timber market is projected to reach $3.56 billion by 2030. In Oregon, if mass timber design achieved a 5% construction market share, it would create 2,048 direct manufacturing jobs.
• U.S. government support for mass timber includes the USDA's Wood Innovations Program, which has provided over $14 million in grants for at least 60 projects. Additionally, the 2018 Farm Bill incorporated provisions from the Timber Innovation Act of 2017 to increase investment in domestic manufacturing and provide technical support to designers and code officials.

APA

Brind’Amour, M., & Bertrand, S. (2023). Building Sustainably: Mass Timber. Environmental and Energy Study Institute. https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-building-sustainably-mass-timber-september-2023

Chicago

Brind’Amour, Molly, and Savannah Bertrand. Building Sustainably: Mass Timber. Environmental and Energy Study Institute, 2023. https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-building-sustainably-mass-timber-september-2023.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Brind’Amour |first1=Molly |last2=Bertrand |first2=Savannah |title=Building Sustainably: Mass Timber |publisher=Environmental and Energy Study Institute |date=29 September 2023 |url=https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-building-sustainably-mass-timber-september-2023 |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{brindamour2023building, author = {Brind’Amour, Molly and Bertrand, Savannah}, title = {{Building Sustainably: Mass Timber}}, institution = {Environmental and Energy Study Institute}, year = {2023}, month = sep, url = {https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-building-sustainably-mass-timber-september-2023}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }