Life-Cycle Assessment of Light Wood Construction

The Canadian Wood Council has released its technical bulletin Energy and the Environment in Residential Construction, a comparative life cycle assessment of steel, concrete and wood in residential construction.

According to the bulletin, considering embodied energy, pollution and waste generation, and resources and energy use over a 20-year period, steel and concrete construction have the following disadvantages in comparison to wood construction:

• 12 to 20 percent more embodied and consumed energy


• 15 to 29 percent more greenhouse gas emissions
• 10 to 12 percent more air pollution


• 225 to 300 percent more water pollution
• 7 to 50 percent more resource use
• 6 to 16 percent more solid waste production

Three residential construction systems are compared: wood light frame, light gauge steel frame, and insulating concrete formwork, all in a Toronto climate. The study takes the position that life-cycle analysis provides the most comprehensive view possible of the comparative environmental impact of these systems.