The Softwood Lumber Board Pushes for More Demand

The Softwood Lumber Board (SLB) identifies itself as an industry-funded initiative established to promote the benefits and uses of softwood lumber products in construction. Its goal is straightforward: boosting demand for lumber products used in the U.S.

To that end, the board has set a new, ambitious goal to attain 2.9 billion board feet of incremental annual lumber demand by 2035. In a post on its site, SLB walks through its plan to boost demand, highlighting major opportunities in "high-growth" segments like multifamily, affordable housing, education, warehouses and distribution centers in particular. It sees a bright future for mass timber, too.

Lumber building systems, per SLB, have the potential to reach taller building heights in both multifamily and nonresidential. It cites projects like Sacramento’s 1430 Q as taking light-frame construction as high as 8 stories, and the proposed 55-story Marcus Center mass timber skyscraper in Milwaukee would more than double the height of Ascent, today’s tallest hybrid timber tower. 

"The added potential for light-frame and hybrid construction, ideally light-frame and mass timber, compounds the opportunities available for incremental volume across the segments, subsegments, and building types," SLB writes.

In addition to prioritizing primary market segments, SLB is focusing on reducing barriers to wood construction, such as code and insurance. It also aims to form alliances to enter markets where competing materials currently dominate. It concludes:

"The plan drives growth by building on what’s already working and reaching more of our target audience in a more effective way. The flexible approach focuses on constant improvement and quickly adopting new ideas to deliver strong, scalable results."