Our Commitment to Sustainability

Sustainability.

It's not only a key business strategy but a necessary one. As a business that depends on natural and limited resources, we are keenly aware of the delicate balance our industry must maintain in order to keep up with market demand while having minimal impact on the planet. In response to this growing concern, we have installed a massive, 360-panel 337kW solar farm that enables us to run our operations on 100% solar power. (See the details below.) And this is just the beginning of our commitment to sustainability.

Making our operations sustainable was an incredible accomplishment. Now on to delivering sustainable products. The first step to achieving this goal was to tackle the issue at the source. That is why, whenever possible, Western Woods purchases wood from tree farms that adopt sustainable harvesting practices. These practices support local biodiversity, sustain trees with the highest potential, and offer an environment that encourages rapid, healthy seedling growth. (Click here to learn more. Source: Michigan State University.)

An infographic featuring our solar farm, highlighting its specs and outlining the operations that it supports. This represents our commitment to sustainability. — An infographic featuring our solar farm, highlighting it's specs and outlining the operations that it supports.

The next step in delivering sustainable products involved looking at how we could improve our in-house manufacturing processes. We have adopted the industry's best sustainability practices, enabling us to reduce the waste output from our manufacturing and other production processes. Specifically, this includes recycling all wood byproducts, excess stains and paints, and all received packaging materials. Taking it one step further, we use naturally-occurring treatments on our lumber products whenever possible: Like those found in our RUSTIC RIDGE™ age-treated lumber. See below to learn more.

We Recycle the Following:

RECYCLE PACKAGING: We recycle all of the packaging that our resources materials arrive in including paper wrap, cardboard, metal banding, & pallets.

RECYCLE WASTE: We also recycle all of the manufacturing byproducts that result from our work including all remaining stains, paint, and wood waste.

PREMIUM LUMBER MADE BY THE POWER OF THE SUN.

360 solar panels. Three 120-panel arrays. 337kW per day. Over 547,000 kW annually. An annual emissions savings equivalent to 87.2 cars. We're proudly leading the industry forward. Designed and built by the team at SunWorks, our solar farm is the largest constructed for a lumber producer on the West Coast. As a result, our solar farm is capable of fully powering all of our operations, including: