Sustainable Flooring - Wood

Wood

The development of life cycle assessment methodology in the early 1990s has shown the environmental advantages of wood and wood-based products.

Wood is a unique and renewable material. Trees absorb carbon during their growing cycle, and this carbon remains stored in products like wood flooring during its service life, thus keeping it out of the atmosphere. At the end of its service life, wood can be reused (in which case the carbon continues to be stored in the wood) or used for fuel.

A life cycle assessment of flooring materials made of solid wood, linoleum and vinyl found the wood flooring had lower energy use and carbon dioxide emissions. It also performed better in environmental impact categories such as resource use, environmental toxin emissions, air pollution emissions and waste generation.

Solid wood products, particularly flooring, are often specified in environments where the occupants are known to have allergies to dust or other particulates. Wood itself is considered to be hypoallergenic; its smooth surfaces are easy to clean and prevent the buildup of particles that are common in soft finishes like carpet.

These technological advances have made many types of hardwood floors easier to install. They can be ordered pre-finished so there is no need to finish or seal the floor before or after installation – they can be installed straight out of the box.

Reclaimed wood is used for wood flooring, it is wood taken for re-use from many different sources including old warehouses, boxcars, coal mines and wine barrels, and wood recovered from rivers. Using reclaimed wood can earn credits towards achieving LEED project certification. Because reclaimed wood is considered recycled content, it meets the Materials & Resources criteria for LEED certification and because some reclaimed lumber products are FSC certified, they can qualify for LEED credits under the “certified wood” category