Sustainability Street: The Truth About Mass Timber

Welcome back to Sustainability Street, our podcast on the intersection of commercial real estate and the world we live in. 

For this episode, I’m talking about mass timber construction with Varun Kohli, director of sustainability for Corgan, a global architecture and design firm with 19 offices.

In a recent study, sustainability and research teams at Corgan joined together to get a better understanding of the lifecycle of mass timber—from forest to installation and beyond—and the variables that impact its use. The goal was to help architects and developers account for all the embodied carbon associated with this increasingly popular building material.

The results of their study are helping dispel some of the myths about mass timber, and a mass timber carbon calculator now sits on the company’s website.

“ That’s really where we want to make an impact,” Kohli said. “You can’t simply say, ‘we want to use mass timber.’  Let’s get into the specifics of where it’s coming from, how it’s being managed and see how that impacts your overall carbon emissions.”

Here’s a sample of the topics we discussed:

• The allure of mass timber (2:22)
• Misconceptions about mass timber (3:51)
• Corgan’s mass timber research project (5:51)
• Managing what’s left behind in the forest (6:03)
• The transportation piece (9:25)
• The Corgan mass timber calculator (13:21)
• The embodied carbon debate (15:54)
• Blending research and sustainability (21:34)

Follow, rate and review CPE’s podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube!