Interview with Leslie Caplan Business Analyst at General Electric, Innovator of Wave Computer Keyboard Wooden Skyscrapers: Wood as a Viable Alternative to Concrete and Steel Electric Vehicles: How Batteries will Define Sustainable Transportation The Future for Solar Energy Solar Energy’s Climb to becoming a Preferred Energy Alternative PENN SUSTAINABILITY REVIEW P UBLISHED BY THE U NIVERSITY OF P ENNSYLVANIA S TUDENTS
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Interview with Leslie CaplanBusiness Analyst at General Electric,Innovator of Wave Computer Keyboard
Wooden Skyscrapers:Wood as a Viable Alternativeto Concrete and Steel
Electric Vehicles:How Batteries will DefineSustainable Transportation
The Future for Solar EnergySolar Energy’s Climb to becominga Preferred Energy Alternative
PENN SUSTAINAB IL ITY REV IEWPublished by the university of Pennsylvania students
Penn Sustainability ReviewPenn Sustainability Review (PSR) is a student-run online and print publication featuring sustainability-related opinion editorials, leadership interviews, and academic papers. We aim to provide a platform for all members of the Penn community to exchange knowl-edge, ideas, and perspectives on wide-ranging sustainability issues. Over the course of each semester, the PSR team will publish a print publication and will maintain regular online updates —through blogs and editorials— that incorporate relevant thought-pro-voking articles. Both the print and online editions of PSR will cover a number of topics including: climate change, green architecture, corporate strategic sustainability, resource and energy conservation, public policy, and sustainable technology to name a few!
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psrmagazine.org
To receive our newsletter and stay up-to-date on sustainability opportunities, apply to join our editorial staff, or make inquiries regarding submission, please email:
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Penn Sustainability Review was made possible thanks to the sponsorship of:
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As the official student sustainability umbrella group at Penn, the Student Sustainability Association (SSAP) was founded in 2010 to foster cohesion among environmentally-fo-cused student groups, develop strategies for impacting campus sustainability, and to create a unified student voice on green issues at Penn.
In i t iat ive for Global Environmental Leadership
IGEL promotes knowledge for business sustainability and works with a diverse and interdisciplinary network to develop and disseminate innovative research and business practices to solve the most pressing environmental issues facing our planet.
PPP e n n S u s t a i n a b i l i t y R e v i e w
SSRR
Letter from the Editor
Dear readers,
Sustainability is all around us− at work and at play. With such a huge pres-ence in our daily lives, it is hard to imagine that the term “sustainability” was only coined over a decade ago. Within these past couple years, however, the idea of sustainability has certainly changed. Now, instead of being just a term, the concept of sustainability encompasses a certain frame of mind that pushes us to reevaluate our individual actions. A sustainabil-ity-focused way of thinking allows us to be more receptive to new ideas, ultimately understanding the importance of social impact, and putting the greater good above ourselves. There’s more to sustainability than just creative ideas though. We must be able to first commit to those ideas and then create a feasible strategy to bring them to life. As the innovator of the Wave Computer Keyboard and an environmental consultant for a number of years, Penn alum Leslie Caplan can attest to the importance of formulating unique, creative strate-gies when implementing ideas. In our third issue, we explore the different implementation stages of sustainability ideas affecting three distinct parts of our lives− through housing, transportation, and energy sources. Within these pages, read about how wood is becoming a new go-to material for constructing skyscrapers, how electric vehicles are increasing their presence on the road, and how solar energy was and still is such a viable source of renewable energy. By sharing these ideas with you, we hope to not only educate, but to inspire you to implement ideas of your own. Often, the first step is just getting your thoughts on paper. Write them down and send them in! We would love to hear your ideas.Together, one idea at a time, we can con-tinue bringing relevant and engaging sustainability issues and ideas to the Penn community.
Interview with Leslie Caplan:WHARTON-COLLEGE ALUMNA, BUSINESS ANALYST AT GENERAL ELECTRIC,
INNOVATOR OF THE WAVE COMPUTER KEYBOARD
The Rise of the Electric Vehicle:HOW BATTERIES WILL DEFINE SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORTATION
The Future for Solar Energy
Building a More Sustainable Future:WOOD AS A VIABLE ALTERNATIVE TO CONCRETE AND STEEL
2.
5.
7.
10.
Interview with
Leslie CaplanWHARTON-COLLEGE ALUMNA, BUSINESS ANALYST AT GENERAL ELECTRIC,
INNOVATOR OF THE WAVE COMPUTER KEYBOARD
2
Leslie Caplan is a Penn alumna who
graduated from Wharton with a
concentration in Political Science
(offered at the time) and from the
College in International Relations
and History. She received her MBA
in Sustainability Management at
Presidio Graduate School and is cur-
rently a business analyst at General
Electric (GE). Ms. Caplan had been
the principal consultant of busi-
ness and sustainability strategy at
GoSustainability for a number of
years, working with clients such
as Apex Investments, W Hotel San
Francisco, CSRwareand Cisco Sys-
tems to develop financial models
and marketing strategies that iden-
tified the need for environmental
considerations when faced with energy efficiency issues and
green architecture. Ms. Caplan had also created and patented
the Wave computer keyboard, a keyboard based on the varying
lengths of the fingers on a hand, that Logitech is now distributing
globally. In the Fall of 2013, PSR had the pleasure of speaking with
Ms. Caplan to discuss corporate sustainability and environmen-
tal consulting. Below is an edited transcript of our discussion.
When you graduated from Penn with a dual degree in Wharton and the College, did you have a specific interest in green business, or did it develop over time?
When I was an undergrad at Penn, I was interested in social
justice and business, but at the time, there was no way to merge
the two. Sustainability was a relatively new term, only gaining
popularity 10 years ago. We didn’t call it that then, but I learned
about the concepts of sustainability through my humanities and
social science classes. An anti-nuclear campaign was one of the
first activities I did with an environmental humanitarian focus.
Then, when I went to law school, I became an environmental at-
torney working on environmental justice issues. Very early on,
I knew I wanted to see and focus on the business aspect of how
businesses and the environment could be integrated through
3
sustainability. There weren’t very many
institutions dedicated to sustainability,
but I went to Presidio Graduate School
for my MBA in Sustainable Manage-
ment and helped shape the field with
my professor Hunter Lovins and tons of
other people. Intellectually, I guess you
could say we were at the forefront of
the corporate sustainability movement.
At the time, Presidio was the newest
business school in the country. It was
great to say that I had attended the old-
est business school too!
Are there any core concepts on sus-tainable business management you learned at Presidio that you can share with us?
At Presidio, we concentrated on some-
thing called the “triple bottom line.”
This means that instead of having just
a financial bottom line, businesses have
social and environmental bottom lines
too. One problem is that when things
get rough, people tend to focus on the
financial bottom line and throw out
the others. The solution is integrating
these three bottom lines into a common
metric− the integrated bottom line. It’s
pretty hard to find companies that have
successfully done this, but a good ex-
ample would be Infosys, a huge Indian
company with branches including IT
and business consulting. Although they
are a mammoth company, their owners’
efforts have integrated integrate social
and environmental stewardship into ev-
ery aspect of its business, making them
as dedicated to their financial bottom
line as they are to their triple. Another
great example would be the private com-
pany Interface. After 21 years of selling
carpets, their owner, Ray Anderson, de-
cided to risk everything, changing the
company’s business model to focus on
fulfilling their triple line instead. Inter-
face has done amazing things ever since.
Now, the company produces fibers from
old carpets, so that when a carpet is
worn out, they can take it, break down
its fibers, and then remake the carpet.
They also focus on selling the service of
carpeting rather than selling the carpet
product itself. This leads to another big
concept in sustainability—that is, prof-
iting from providing services rather
than from selling material goods. The
benefits here are two-fold. Not needing
to buy raw materials is a cost-effective
and sustainable strategy. Essentially,
what they teach at Presidio and other
sustainability programs is that you’re
not bridging the gap between business
and sustainability. There really is no
gap. You are integrating the two so that
they become one.
Could you talk a little bit about the typical role of an environmental consultant?
There are so many different ways to be
a sustainability consultant. Essential-
ly, every aspect of a business or project
can be analyzed through a sustainabil-
ity lens. Sustainability consultants can
have finance backgrounds or business
sustainability ones. On the job, we some-
times apply sustainability tools to solve
a conventional business problem at a
conventional business. Other times we
consult to business that are more clear-
ly “sustainable,” like a solar company. I
worked on a project at a major corpora-
tion once, where we demonstrated that
green buildings had a human resources
impact. If you went and asked the CFO
to allocate capital for energy retrofits,
they would look for the return payback
and then perhaps decide they would
rather build a new factory than give us
money to retrofit the current one. In-
stead, what we did was recognize that
human resources represent a huge part
of operation cost, and that retrofitting
buildings is a much more cost-effective
way of cutting human resources costs—
through higher employee satisfaction
and retention rates—than typical strat-
egies. Previously, companies had only
looked at energy savings as the met-
ric by which to evaluate the benefit of
4
green building retrofits. By attributing a dollar val-
ue to the human resources impact, we could show
exponentially larger financial benefits. Metrics
are so important. These numbers are what made
the argument for retrofitting so much more com-
pelling. See how creative you need to be to devise
unique strategies like this? Not all MBA students
or Wharton undergrads are cut out for this type of
creative work, but Wharton gives you the funda-
mental tools to ask questions that lead to creative
solutions and then figure out how to demonstrate
that being sustainable improves the company’s fi-
nancial bottom line.
How do you see the integration between busi-ness and sustainability progressing in the fu-ture?
That’s such a hard question. I think future growth
will emerge from economically less-developed
countries (ELDCs). ELDCs are a huge market—if
you can make pennies per unit by selling to them
and providing value, then you are building the
base of our sustainability pyramid. For instance,
entrepreneurs have started selling solar powered
cooking stations to people who used kerosene to
cook, or created apps to facilitate the transfer of
information between two rural towns. A strong
entrepreneurial culture is already initiating social
impact businesses models that encompass sustain-
ability—and not just the environmental kind, so-
cial sustainability too. In terms of corporate sus-
tainability, I can’t predict what will happen. I don’t
expect some crazy change though. Think about
how many people are in the information officer or
investor relations office at 10 large corporations.
Then think about how many sustainability vice
presidents, managers, and employees are in their
entire billion-dollar companies—typically only a
few. This just isn’t nearly enough internal push for
corporate sustainability.
So are you saying that the lack of sustain-ably-minded people in businesses is the great-est obstacle facing corporate sustainability?
That’s one reason. There cannot be any fundamen-
tal shift in an organization that dedicates so few
resources to sustainability. There is also a huge
legal obstacle to making decisions on sustainabil-
ity alone. Corporate laws require that companies
make decisions based on the financial interests of
shareholders. But not all hope is lost. Some corpo-
rations are looking into B Corp—a program en-
couraging companies to make decisions based on
environmental and social impact—since it saves
money and is ultimately the right financial deci-
sion. It’s really all about how you do your calcu-
lations. If you’re thinking in quarterly terms like
most companies do, then you’re out of luck in
terms of following the triple bottom line. If this
is something more long term, then I think there
are huge financial arguments to be made for sus-
tainability. In the end, that’s what it comes to: the
company or the company’s people being willing to
make financial arguments for sustainability.
What would be your advice for undergraduate students who are interested in corporate sus-tainability as a career?
Do internships wherever you can. Internships al-
low you to develop skills and really immerse your-
selves in strong businesses and introduce some
of the higher-level thinking I talked about today.
Learn the fundamentals of the businesses you are
interested in, always keeping in mind where deci-
sions could be made with a focus on sustainability.
Make those suggestions and support them with fi-
nancial, as well as social and environmental argu-
ments.
Seeking information is important too. It doesn’t
matter what aspect of sustainability, you need to
figure out what the greatest things going on in
the field are by talking to people, going to speak-
er events, and attending webinars. It’s hard to
acquire knowledge as someone from the outside.
Feel confident. You know more than you think.
Sustainability is a broad field. If you focus and
learn about a specific area of interest to you, you
wil quickly know more than many, many other
folk in the field. Have the confidence to call people,
learn what you can, and use what you learn. Take
your good ideas into companies you work for or
think would be interested. Find a place where new
ideas are welcome. In this field, everything is new.
Have fun.
For more information on Leslie Caplan, visit
lesl iecaplan.com
Interviewed by Emily Wei
The Rise of the
Electric VehicleHOW BATTERIES WILL DEFINE SUSTAINABILE TRANSPORTATION
“...by 2060, it is well within possibility that, worldwide, over 60 percent of vehicles will be powered by electricity,
hydrogen, or a combination of both.”
In 2012, the Utah State Legislature passed a series of bills
aimed at reversing the trend of declining air quality in the
Wasatch Front, Utah’s urban and economic corridor. Days of
smoke-blanketed skylines and air quality alerts were on the
rise throughout the region, harming the quality of life for the
area’s two million residents. Keeping in mind that tailpipe
emissions account for more than half of the city’s pollution,
lawmakers attempted to clean up Utah’s transportation by en-
couraging the use of cleaner, natural gas vehicles, in addition
to enforcing a host of other emissions regulation. This was
clearly a step in the right direction.
Also buried in the legislation were tax credits for electric ve-
hicles (EVs), vehicles that use energy from rechargeable bat-
teries instead of hydrocarbon fuels. And in the past several
months, the state legislature took further action, ordering the
Public Service Commission to immediately conduct research
into measures that would promote the use of alternative vehi-
cles – namely all-electric vehicles (BEVs), which run solely on
electricity, and hybrid-electric vehicles (PHEVs), which utilize
both electricity and conventional fuel. Given that all-electric
vehicles produce no tailpipe emissions, there is potential for
drastic improvements in Utah’s unsustainable smog problem
should motorists adopt the technology.
It appears as if that potential will be realized for Utah and
much of the world. Shell Oil Company released its 40th an-
nual “New Lens Scenario” last March, a project that explores
possible global energy scenarios stretching decades into the
future. In the 2013 report, Shell’s research team concluded that
While hydrogen fuel-cell technology is still in its infancy,
BEVs have been on the market for several years. Initial adop-
tion has been slow, and most people have still never person-
ally interacted with an electric vehicle. However, when look-
ing at the developments in the electric vehicle market, it is
easy to see how their adoption will begin to widely spread as
the New Lens Scenario indicates, promising clearer days for
cities like Utah and more sustainable global vehicle usage.
5
For the United States and other developed nations,
BEV adoption provides a net benefit for the cli-
mate. Skeptics point out tthat if a grid’s electricity
is carbon heavy, the electric vehicle is simply out-
sourcing its pollution to a nearby coal or natural
gas power plant. This is true, but the reality is that
in the United States and Europe, the largest electric
vehicle markets, BEVs still have less of an impact
on the environment than traditional vehicles. This
is because these countries have major non-carbon
energy sources,
meaning that
the electricity
powering the
vehicle will
have a signif-
icant source
of zero-carbon
energy. In oth-
er words, the
electricity has a
smaller carbon
footprint per
unit of energy
than gasoline.
As the United
States shifts
further toward
a grid powered by natural gas, wind, and solar en-
ergy, the source of electric power will become in-
creasingly cleaner than oil-based gasoline.
The largest benefits will be seen for cities like Phila-
delphia, where, according to Greenworks Philadel-
phia, over 5 billion vehicle-miles are logged each
year. Adoption of electric vehicles in and around
cities will keep the local air and water systems
cleaner. Because of this, the University of Pennsyl-
vania already encourages EV use. The Perelman
Center for Advanced Medicine has installed 21 EV
charging stations, and many university depart-
ments, including Public Safety and Urban Park,
employ electric motorcycles, golf-carts, and trucks
to reduce emissions on campus. Dan Garofalo, Penn’s Environmental Sustainability Director,
states that while Penn currently does not have
a plan to completely shift its vehicles to electric,
“we should gradually move toward the use of EVs
where possible,” noting that “a lot of people across
campus are making these decisions [to adopt elec-
tric vehicles] independently.” For Garofalo, EV use
on Penn’s campus is mostly geared toward raising
public awareness about the associated environ-
mental benefits in an urban environment.
Indeed, while sales of EVs and PHEVs in the Unit-
ed States and Europe are rising, many factors of
the market will need to change before mass adop-
tion can be reached. Battery technology must ad-
vance to provide single-charge ranges that can
fit the needs of long-distance commuters. At the
same time, pro-
duction costs
for electric ve-
hicles, notably
batteries, will
need to drop
significantly
to reduce the
market’s de-
pendence on
g o v e r n m e n t
subsidies and
ensure that
c o n s u m e r s
will be saving
money over
the lifetime of
their vehicles.
Also, consumer skepticism must be deconstruct-
ed. This will only come with time and continued
adoption. Although these issues pose significant
obstacles for the BEV market, technological inno-
vation will gradually resolve them. As a study of
the Belfer Center of Harvard University presents,
should batteries become less costly and gas pric-
es rise as expected, the lifetime cost of BEVs will
become markedly cheaper than conventional ve-
hicles in about fifteen years. Furthermore, Tesla
Motors has dramatically demonstrated with the
Model S that batteries offering ranges of over 250
miles are already feasible for production and that
their costs are falling quickly. The rise of the elec-
tric vehicle is simply a matter of when, ultimately
serving to make our cities more livable and our
transportation more sustainable.
Written by Douglas Russ
6
The Future for
Solar EnergyAmidst ongoing debates about a potential scarcity of fossil fuel
resources, many scientists are expanding to different energy
markets, working to harness new technology for renewable re-
sources in an effort to reduce our overall fossil fuel consump-
tion. One such technology involves the development of solar
panels. The greater implementation of solar energy is long over-
due, especially because of current concerns regarding elevated
CO2 emissions. With CO
2 levels rising at unprecedented rates
exceeding 400 parts per million, we must reduce consumption
of fossil fuels by developing more solar panels. The major benefit
of solar energy has been its almost negligible amount of green-
house gas emission compared to that of gas, oil and coal.1 The
need for energy will continue to remain high in the immediate
future, especially due to a rising population. Providing everyone
with relatively clean solar technology can help us meet that de-
mand.
Renewable energy research has seen a major boost in the re-
search community. In order to track the extent of innovation
in scientific research we can count the number of patents pro-
duced in each industry. A study carried out by researchers from
MIT and the Santa Fe Institute found that while patents for fos-
sil fuel technologies grew modestly, the number of patents in-
creased by 13% per year for solar energy technology between
2004 and 2009.2 Scientists’ general shift in focus to renewable
7
1. http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report/IPCC_SRREN_Full_Report.pdf2. http://thitnkprogress.org/climate/2013/10/15/2779741/renewable-energy-pat ents-booming-led-solar-wind/ and http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3A doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0067864
“Continuous research and innovation will continue to reduce the price for solar energy, and will make it a preferred energy alternative for businesses
and residents.”
Building a More
Sustainable FutureWOOD AS A VIABLE ALTERNATIVE TO CONCRETE AND STEEL
Deforestation, both in the United States and abroad, has re-
mained a central issue when discussing environmentalism
during the past couple decades. Although this widespread at-
tention prompted substantial change in how forests are man-
aged on both a regional and an international scale, it has also
given rise to misperceptions regarding timber as a viable con-
struction material in large-scale developments.
As it stands now, most commercial buildings incorporate two
principal materials in their designs: concrete and steel. Howev-
er, according to Jim Bowyer, Responsible Materials Program Director at Dovetail Partners, an environmental consulting
firm, wood is superior to both concrete and steel from an envi-
ronmental perspective, as long as it is harvested in a sustain-
able manner—a standard that organizations like the Forest
Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Sustainable Forestry Initia-
tive (SFI) set. This can be determined using a tool known as
the life cycle assessment (LCA) for each material; this method
takes into account the inputs required, like energy and water,
as well as the outputs generated, such as emissions and waste,
during each step in a product’s life—from raw material ex-
traction to manufacturing and distribution, sometimes even
including product life and disposal.
“There have been numerous studies comparing wood, con-
crete, and steel as construction materials, and there has been
a remarkable convergence in findings that indicate greater en-
vironmental impacts linked to steel, and even more so to con-
crete construction, with impacts higher at a wide range of im-
pact indicators,” Bowyer said. “All materials are going to have
inputs and outputs associated with them, but when looking at
the relative impacts, it’s clear that timber is the more sustain-
able choice.”
Concrete production in particular is detrimental to the environ-
ment because cement is the active ingredient in concrete, and in
manufacturing cement, calcium carbonate (CaCO3) is convert-
ed to calcium oxide (CaO), thus releasing carbon dioxide (CO2)
gas. Using timber, on the other hand, decreases a building’s
carbon footprint through sequestration: Trees remove carbon
from the atmosphere and use it in making wood, so when the
trees are harvested and the wood is used in construction ap-
pli-cations, it continues to store the carbon throughout its lifes-
pan, making it a “carbon sink.” In fact, each cubic meter of wood
sequesters just under 1,686 pounds of carbon dioxide, Nicolas
10
ACCORDING TOKRIS SPICKLER
The total area covered in forests is the same now as
it was in 1907.
Angleys, Marketing Advisor for Nordic Engineered Wood, said.
On a practical level, when using wood
as opposed to concrete or steel, harvest-
ed timber does not need to be altered
or treated prior to use in a commer-
cial structure; nonetheless, engineered
wood is also an option. Because non-al
tered lumber samples exhibit various ex-
pansion and strength capabilities, some
companies, like Nordic Engineered
Wood and Structurlam Products, alter
the original samples in order to stan-
dardize the expansion properties as well
as increase the wood’s overall strength
and sturdiness.
“Construction has dropped since 2008,
but taking that into consideration and
looking at the buildings that have been
erected in that time, I have seen an in-
crease in demand for our product,” Kris Spickler, Structurlam Products timber specialist, said. “It’s clear that wood is
gaining momentum as an alternative to
concrete and steel.”
The most recent innovation in engi-
neered wood is Cross-Laminated Tim-
ber (CLT), a sheet whose dimensions
are massive compared to previous en-
gineered wood products, Spickler said.
Smaller 2x6 pieces combine to form
large CLT panels, which can then be
used to replace concrete in the “tilt-up
method,” a construction technique that
involves pouring cement into walls
and then tilting them up into the struc-
ture’s design. Using wood as opposed
to concrete allows companies to erect
buildings more quickly, since wood is
lighter than concrete and doesn’t re-
quire two weeks to set; it’s also advan-
tageous in that it allows workers to
continue to work throughout the win-
ter, whereas in some areas, companies
can’t pour concrete during the winter
months because the ground is frozen.
In addition to being the more sustain-
able material when compared to con-
crete and steel, wood—whether har-
vested and used in engineered lumber
or not—also has procedural and aes-
thetic advantages while still being com-
petitive from a financial perspective.
Because wood products are pre-fab-
ricated, nothing needs to be created
on the job site, which “revolutionizes
the construction process as we know
it,” Spickler said; timber structures
can be completed much more quick-
ly on the whole than those made from
concrete and steel, and waste is mini-
mized. When looking at the completed
11
“According to Bowyer, one calculation projects that replacing concrete and steel with wood in the United States for one year—only where it is both tech-nically possible and in line with using sustainable practices to harvest the timber from our forests—would be equivalent to taking millions of cars off
the road in terms of fossil fuels and carbon dioxide emissions.”
structures themselves, wood also pro-
vides a new experience for clients.
“Timber structures have an organic, har-
monious aesthetic appeal,” Peter Busby, Managing Director at Perkins+Will San Francisco, said. “We incorporate
wood in our projects not only because
it’s the more sustainable option, but also
because it allows people to feel in tune
with the building’s environment.”
There are some challenges that could
slow timber’s progress as an emerging
alternative to
concrete and
steel, howev-
er. One core
setback is
public misper-
ception relat-
ed to wood’s
structural ca-
pabilities and long-term durability.
Apprehension related to the fire haz-
ard a large-scale wooden structure
might pose, for example, is a common
concern. But this trepidation is un-
substantiated when large-sized tim-
bers and thick panels are used: Be-
cause these building elements have
such large cross-sections, the wood
begins to char when it comes into con-
tact with fire, forming an insulation lay-
er, which then lessens the fuel contribu-
tion to the fire, Bowyer said. In addition,
the wood burns at a slow and predict-
able rate, which allows people time to
exit safely.
“A massive timber construction is typ-
ically safer in a fire than steel and con-
crete structures,” Bowyer said. “Due to
thermal expansion, when steel heats
up, it gets longer, meaning steel beams
can topple the concrete walls that an-
chor them. Furthermore, because
steel quickly becomes ductile at
high temperatures, it then loses
its strength and collapses, whi-
ch compromises the building’s
structural integrity. I’ve seen
examples where steel did just th-
at, and the building’s roof and ov-
erall structure was then held up by
wood beams and timbers.”
In smaller-scale wooden structures, on
the other hand, fire concerns are much
more pronounced. In these cases, ad-
vanced sprin-
kler, alarm,
and smoke
control ap-
proaches are
integrated into
the buildings;
fire-retardant
treatment is an
option, albeit a less common one, as
well, Spickler said.
Due in part to concerns about fire haz-
ards, building codes are another hurdle
for the large-scale wood construction
movement—although one that some
have begun to address. Right now, the
International Building Code (IBC) does
not recognize mass timber construc-
tion; however, ANSI/APA PRG 320—a
standard for performance-rated CLT to
be used in construction applications—
was accepted in 2012 and will be inte-
grated into the 2015 IBC, Spickler said.
But there is still more to be done.
“The main problem is that people—leg-
islators, consumers, designers—are re-
luctant to change,” Angleys said. “The
most important thing we need to do
now is to educate future architects and
12
ACCORDING TOKRIS SPICKLER
Today’s forest growth exceeds
harvest by 72 percent.
“A massive timber construction is typically safer in a fire than steel andconcrete structures,” Bowyer said.