Thank you.
Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Bill Downing. I'm the president of Structurlam Products in Penticton, B.C.
I'm going to talk specifically about value-added and a specific product in value-added, and that's mass timber building elements, because that's what my company does. First, I'll give you a bit of history about Structurlam.
We manufacture two laminated wood products: glue-laminated beams, or glulam, and cross-laminated timber panels, or CLT. Our main business is taking those elements and prefabricating mass timber structures, mass timber packages, as we call them. The company has been in business for 55 years. We employ about 225 people in three plants in the south Okanagan. Over those 55 years, we've supplied some of the most iconic timber structures in the world, including the world's tallest wood building, which is UBC's Brock Commons student residence; the largest wood roof in North America, which is the Rocky Ridge Recreation Facility, in Calgary; and the most complex wood structure in North America, which is the facade of the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. Those are flagship projects, and they've solidified our reputation as one of the best in the world. I'm proud of them, but they're not what gets me excited.
What gets me excited are the more mainstream buildings, because that's where the volume is. Here I'm talking about multi-family residential apartment buildings, office buildings, and the like. We have some examples. We provided two in Portland, Oregon: one is Carbon 12, an eight-storey building, and the other is the First Tech Federal Credit Union building, one of the biggest wood buildings. I thought I would bring a picture. I don't know if you can see it, but that's a picture of the First Tech Credit Union building going up. You can get a feel for the size and scope of that structure. That's what gets me excited. I know they're not the iconic structures, but they are very impressive and they use up a lot of volume.
Why would you build out of wood instead of concrete or steel? Mass timber buildings have three main advantages. They can be erected very quickly, so there are huge schedule savings. They're carbon neutral. They use renewable material right from Canadian lumber, which is cost-effective and plentiful.
You might be worried about wood buildings rotting or burning. I can tell you that if you don't design them and build them properly, that can happen. However, if we design mass timber structures properly, primarily keeping water and UV rays off the wood, they can last hundreds of years. CLTs have a two-year fire rating, even when fully exposed.
The good news is we've figured out how to design and build high-performance mass timber buildings, and I think that's going to change the way we construct our structures here in North America. Ten years from now, I envision a world where mass timber will be used extensively for buildings up to 30 floors high. I'm not saying that wood will completely replace concrete or steel; rather, wood will be on an equal footing with those other materials and will be considered with almost every construction project. Use the right material for the right application.
I believe that as wood use increases in taller and larger buildings, that will impact the supply chain in a very beneficial way. For example, most Canadian material is currently exported to the U.S., primarily to supply the single-family home market. This is going to change. In the future, I can see an increasing percentage of that fibre being processed by secondary manufacturers, like Structurlam. We will then prefabricate the structure to a much higher tolerance and quality compared to site-built. These prefabricated building elements will be used for construction in North America and overseas. Rather than exporting lumber, I can see us exporting prefabricated structures made here in Canada. That's happening already. Let me give you an example.
Structurlam just landed the largest mass timber building job in North America—it could be the largest CLT building in the world—to rebuild Microsoft's campus in Silicon Valley. We're purchasing the fibre from Canadian Forest Products, or Canfor. Last week, I issued them a purchase order for $4 million, which is a big purchase order even for a large multinational like Canfor. You can see the shift happening. Remember, our products go across the border duty-free.
What happens when the fibre is processed into value-added products in Canada instead of being exported to the U.S. as dimensional lumber? We literally triple the value of that fibre. In other words, we're extracting three times the value per board foot from our Canadian timber resource. In addition, the manufacturing process and Canadian labour is often in rural communities, as in Structurlam's case, where jobs are hard to come by. Finally, we're reducing greenhouse gas emissions by converting steel and concrete construction to wood. It's a pretty good story.
I know there is a private member's bill regarding using more wood in federally funded buildings, and I would encourage all of you to support this initiative. Remember that steel and concrete are well entrenched in the construction of large buildings, and all the players, from the architects to the engineers to the general contractors, are very comfortable with using the status quo. In fact, most structural engineers aren't even taught how to design in mass timber, and our carpenters aren't trained in how to erect a mass timber structure.
Without the help of things like a wood first initiative like we're considering, things will change very slowly and Canada will miss the opportunity to lead the world in mass timber design and construction.
Thank you.