The Forest Foundation in the USA has released a 'green guide' to help promote the use of wood in construction.

The booklet, The Wood User's Guide to Green Building, details the important role wood plays in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, underscores the energy efficiency of wood and shows how well wood rates when compared to other primary building materials. It includes scientific data showing how wood outperforms steel and concrete across a range of environmental performance criteria.

"Wood is truly the only building material that is renewable, recyclable and biodegradable," said Robert Mion, marketing director for The Forest Foundation. "This green building guide is an important resource for everyone, particularly as people try to make more environmentally sensitive decisions."

Some facts included in the guide:
-- More wood is grown than harvested every year in California and, contrary to some assumptions, the state has nearly the same amount of forestland as it did 100 years ago.
-- Building wall systems with steel or concrete can increase greenhouse gas emissions by 33 percent and 80 percent respectively
-- Not only is wood grown using natural energy from the sun, but more than 60 percent of wood processing is powered by wood-based biofuels, a much cleaner source of energy than fossil fuels.

The Wood Users Guide to Green Building can be viewed on-line at www.calforestfoundation.org