Who’s in favor of legally sourced wood?

If you’re raising your hand, you’re not alone: illegal logging is a global scourge that destroys ecosystems and contributes to climate change. It’s carried out by organized crime and is used to fund civil wars and terrorism. And by some estimates, as much as half the timber in the world is harvested illegally.

Through lab testing, Timber Traceability is designed to help ensure that wood purchased for projects matches the species that the project team specified and purchased. To achieve the Timber Traceability pilot credit, project teams have to identify the area of harvest and species of at least 50% by cost of the wood on the project, then order testing—such as DNA, mass spectrometry, or stable isotope analysis—of the actual wood that’s delivered to the site. If it matches, the project earns a point. There are additional requirements for wood products sourced from countries with high risk of illegal logging.

The credit has tiers of achievement based on how far project teams are able to zoom in on the wood’s origins. To help with what could be complicated details, the Environmental Investigation Agency will act as an intermediary through the website woodorigin.org, and USGBC has released a guidance document explaining the steps. These include gathering and submitting basic information on all wood products, and gathering and submitting samples and maps of area of origin. USGBC recommends that project teams seek maps for most or all wood products, in case some of their samples ultimately don’t match.