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Eco-friendly lumber meets stiff market Mail Tribune / Roy Musitell The expansion at Ashland Community Food Store is one of two local construction projects using wood certified as both environmentally and business friendly. No retail infrastructure for FSC wood makes competitive-pricing difficult in Ashland By JOHN DARLING for the Mail Tribune ASHLAND - Two large building projects here are using wood certified to be grown according to standards friendly to both business and the environment - so-called FSC wood, approved by the Forest Stewardship Council. The lumber costs 5 to 15 percent more than uncertified wood at retail prices, but is checked on the stump by FSC teams to make sure it's being grown in ways that support wildlife, old-growth forests, watershed management and soil preservation - and still allow the landowner a good profit, said Mark Stella of Green Mountain Woodworks in Phoenix. Stella supplied the 26,000 board feet of lumber, mostly sawn framing wood for renovations at Ashland Community Food Store and the city of Ashland's Planning and Development Building, a remodel of the old Hillah Temple. It was harvested from the Northern California coast. He also uses FSC wood in floors, panels and the counters he makes. The Forest Stewardship Council, a collaboration of indigenous peoples and environmental, business and forestry representatives, was formed in 1993 to end the ecology-economy standoff by identifying wood grown with sustainable practices to help it compete in the marketplace, said Dominick DellaSalla of the World Wildlife Fund in Ashland. "We support FSC practices worldwide because it takes account of the concerns and sustainability of all sides," DellaSalla said. "It eases the pressure to cut endangered old-growth forests." ACFS chose the premium wood because it's "absolutely in line with our existing values, promoting sustainable business practices while providing the quality they expect," said ACFS outreach director Annie Hoy. Ashland Councilwoman Cate Hartzell said FSC lumber was used "to integrate our citizens' concern for the environment with sound economic decision-making." While FSC wood is finding a retail base in larger cities, such as Portland, Seattle and San Francisco, it's proving difficult to work with in Ashland, said John Fields, Golden-Fields Construction and Design of Ashland, the builder on the ACFS project. "There's no retail infrastructure here yet, so you're buying mill-direct - wholesale - but you're still paying 15 percent over market value, but without the retail support," Fields said. "You have to order it all at once and fork-lift it yourself, and if you have to restock or re-order, it takes two weeks. Hopefully, if the market grows, the price will come down and there'll be a middle man." Availability and price have been deterrents to FSC wood use here, said Carlos Delgado, architect for the ACFS expansion. But as demand increases and contractors learn to prefer sustainable materials, the situation is improving. "I encourage my clients to think about where their building materials come from and what kind of environmental consequences their use has. Now that FSC certified products are more available, it gives us an assurance that we aren't getting our wood at the expense of the forest. Though it does sometimes cost a little bit more, its overall impact on a building project's budget is negligible." Wood usually runs 2 to 3 percent of a home's cost, so the premium for FSC wood might only total $500 or about the cost of a trash compactor, said Fields. But most people building homes will, at this point, want the compactor more than the FSC wood. FSC wood has to be kept segregated from normal supplies and tracked with a "chain of custody" document, said Ashland Lumber's Bobby Hodgins Jr. Supply is often a problem and with the market just developing, Hodgins knows of only one supplier - in Eastern Oregon - who mainly sells white fir and ponderosa pine. Builders prefer Douglas fir, he said. John Darling is a free-lance writer living in Ashland. E-mail him at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.