About Ontario Wood According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), "buildings could represent the greatest opportunity for making considerable reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. About 30 percent of the projected global greenhouse gas emissions in the building sector could be avoided by 2030 through green building choices".
Wood is a renewable, recyclable, biodegradable and environmentally friendly resource. Ontario's Crown Forest Sustainability Act (CFSA) requires all harvested areas to be regenerated. By buying Ontario wood products, we support Ontario jobs and reduce the environmental footprint associated with transportation. Forestry in Ontario directly and indirectly employs over 275,000 people. Wages and benefits for those directly employed in the primary forest sector are well above the average Canadian wage. When it comes to building materials, sawn lumber has the lowest net carbon footprint.  Carbon is stored in harvested wood and transformed into wood products such as building materials and furniture. While carbon remains sequestered in wood products, more carbon is being stored in the trees planted/regenerated by the forest sector (NRCan).
The carbon stored in Ontario's forest products this century is 4-5 times greater than the carbon stored in our forests (Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, 2007). Ontario's managed forest does not contribute to global warming, it, in fact, mitigates climate change by providing a steadily increasing carbon sink (March 2008, Forestry Chronicle). Canada has over 40 million hectares (98.84 million acres) of protected forest, more than any other country and has a net deforestation rate of zero. In Ontario, less than one third of one percent of the forest is harvested annually. Meanwhile, Brazil and Indonesia were responsible for 68 percent of global deforestation from 2000 to 2005. Wood production creates less air and water pollution and uses less energy during the manufacturing process than other building materials. |