Project teams looking for building materials and systems with a lower environmental impact are increasingly eyeing wood — specifically cross-laminated timber (CLT), a type of mass timber that, research has shown, rivals concrete and steel in performance but has a smaller environmental footprint.
Still, supply-side challenges have made it hard for mass-timber products to gain a foothold in the U.S. market. Mill owners have proven generally unwilling to update their production lines to make large CLT panels until there is a steady demand, but demand won’t pick up until material prices come down and local codes become more accepting of the new material. And that’s not likely to happen until supply increases, and with it the number of real-world projects.
