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As background: Our founder started out in low-impact logging in Vermont using horses. We logged on reforested land that was once used for grazing as Vermont in 1900 was 80% open agricultural land with 20% forested. Today the reverse is true and the state fights to keep the remaining 20% in agriculture as family farming now gives way to corporate farming out West and formerly open lands naturally return to forest.
Most building materials—including steel, concrete, and plastic-based products to name a few—are very energy-intensive to extract as raw materials and to manufacture into finished products. Because most energy is produced by burning fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas, this means that these products are implicated in carbon dioxide production and climate change.
Wood, by contrast, is essentially a renewable carbon sink: utilizing solar energy and photosynthesis, young trees take carbon from the atmosphere and fix it in a cellular structure - wood. Mature forests are carbon-neutral as natural decay matches new growth. In harvesting and growing trees and making wood products (which are then incorporated into building structures and do not decompose), we are creating carbon sinks and thereby mitigating the greenhouse effect—provided, of course, that the forest is left to regenerate itself.
Unlike oil wells, ore mines, or other ultimate sources for the materials cited above, forests provide a variety of ecological services, including wildlife habitat, air and water purification, soil stabilization, and so forth. Furthermore, forests can continue to provide these services while being managed for a sustainable-yield of forest products.
The truth is that each and every choice of flooring has an environmental impact. For example, wool carpets require sheep. Sheep require grazing lands which are sometimes created by converting forests to grasslands. Sheep are also large producers of methane gases - one of the leading causes of the "greenhouse effect". In addition, sheep are generally domesticated, introduced animals that take over range from native species. So what on the surface looks like a natural choice has many hidden environmental costs. Inevitably, in choosing between materials, we enter the realm of trade-offs and shades of green.
Every building material has its own associated environmental costs. Synthetic carpet made from petroleum-based products has all the environmental costs associated with oil, including drilling, spills, large amounts of pollution and toxic chemical by-products, energy used in different stages of manufacturing, and the lack of biodegradability--not to mention a short life cycle. Ceramic tile has its own set of environmental costs, as does vinyl. Rather than go into the details of each on this webpage, please read what the experts say:
We are very aware that wood, too, has its environmental costs. These include:
- the impact of logging on the ecosystem including water and soil resources, flora and fauna, and local communities. logging roads that can allow incursions of non-native species and of settlers, which can in turn accelerate the conversion of the forest to agricultural uses.
- high grading -- which is hunting for high-quality specimens of high-value species and taking only those while leaving behind the lesser-known, less-valuable species. This can impact large areas of forest, since valuable trees often grow widely dispersed in the forest (particularly in the tropics). In the short run, it devalues forests by removing the most valuable trees, and in the long-run it selects against the characteristics and species that have the greatest economic value.
We know that any harvesting of the forest adversely impacts the "natural" forest. We also know, however, that there are varying degrees of impact. These can range from the worst practices of poaching logs from national forests all the way through to exemplary forest management
Therefore, we believe the responsible sourcing of wood flooring includes supporting good management of the forests from where the wood originates. For more information on WFI's commitments to responsible sourcing please see our Sourcing Policy - PDF. |