Environmental Benefits of Wood Floors
Wood flooring is the most abundantly renewable flooring material available. The trees used to make wood floors are produced in a factory called a forest by a renewable source of energy called the sun. Sustainable forest management makes it possible to harvest wood without any serious impact on the environment, because trees are a renewable resource that can be replaced time and time again. Check out the environmental facts about wood floors:
- Average annual net growth for hardwoods is greater than average annual removals (Source: US Department of Agriculture Forest Service)
- Indoor air quality if better with wood floors (Source: US Environmental Protection Agency)
- Wood is a carbon neutral product that produces oxygen during its growth cycle and stores carbon during its service life (Source: University of Wisconsin Wood Products Program Solid Wood Flooring Life Cycle Analysis)
- Wood floors use less water and energy to produce that other flooring options (Source: University of Wisconsin Wood Products Program Solid Wood Flooring Life Cycle Analysis)
- At the end of its service life, wood flooring can be burned as fuel or recycled (Source: University of Wisconsin Wood Products Program Solid Wood Flooring Life Cycle Analysis)
- Wood floors last hundreds of years, so won’t need to be replaced as often as other flooring options (Source: National Association of Home Builders)
- While it takes most hardwood trees 40-60 years to mature, the inventory planted today won’t be needed for 100-plus years (Source: National Wood Flooring Association)
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