The history of trying to transition what has been a frequently toxic and dangerous building products industry into healthy options has been advanced by a handful of fierce advocates and challenged by the builders themselves who see the change as an added cost and stall advancements to an alarmingly slow pace.

On top of that, product offerings from large manufacturers are dictated by the volume and scale that production builders can deliver, which often leads to lower cost over quality.

However, one healthy product that is having a moment is mass timber. First introduced to the market in Europe in the 1990s, it takes the form of glulam and cross-laminated timber (CLT) as a low-carbon alternative to steel and concrete.

As financing and incentives become more aligned with sustainability objectives, this structural building product is becoming more popular. And, with its popularity, new programs, services and tools are being introduced.

Timber has always been a large part of how homes are built in the U.S. Ben Christensen, CEO at wood marketplace Cambium , saw that first hand. He grew up in the wood industry in rural New Mexico.

“We didn’t have central heating, so we cut our own firewood,” he said. “I was an only child, so my best friends were the trees. My life’s work is addressing climate. I worked at national labs, bringing data-driven decision making into what we do. Also, at the Yale School of Forestry, I worked on federal policy, watching the industry grow to one trillion dollars globally.”

That experience drove him to create Cambium, which he describes as the tech company that brings sustainability to the forest space at scale and is doing that by focusing on the 426 million tons of wood that is wasted in the U.S. every year.

“That material could be used to replace over half of current demand,” he said. “We need a giant volume and we are reusing less than 5% today because there is no coordination. Today, there are no brands, no customer experience.”

To flip the script, Cambium is working nationwide to gather salvaged trees—an act that it’s hoping can transform sourcing wood to purchasing from the right places. In the process, it’s leveraging technology to track a real pricing component that can scale and give a wholesale discount over time.

Cambium also is involved in the regulatory environment to drive access and reuse from unmanaged forests with private landowners and forest companies or cities or parks.

“Today when a tree comes down, we don’t know where it will end up,” Christensen added. “There are dozens of steps before the end customer and a lot of inefficiency in the supply chain. If you can get the data under all of that, we can solve and create efficiency. By creating the demand, we’re able to get the data.”

That data includes information on sourcing, processing, pricing, and environmental conditions. Cambium focuses at the source level to provide a material that comes in really clean.

What it is doing is working. The company’s revenue grew five times last year and continues to expand.

The technology is a critical part of that growth. Cambium is introducing AI into a very verbal industry, where contracts are routinely done on a call or a handshake, even with million-dollar deals. Cambium is bringing AI to engage with a digital layer in a verbal way so users can fill out paperwork by having a conversation.

Cambium is working with other industry players in the project ecosystem to bring more mass timber projects to life.

Putting Mass Timber In Action

A California-based company, Mosaic Timber , is creating lightweight, fire-resistant, carbon-sequestering panels from locally sourced small-diameter trees to be used in home kits or in new home designs. The company has rebuilt several homes after wildfire damage, using small diameter trees that are a common but underused asset.

Generate.design is a another new technology company that focuses on automating the mass timber design and quoting process. The technology helps the industry adjust to the new building processes that are unique compared to conventional ones.

“A lot of projects are killed during pre-construction,” said the company’s co-founder and CTO Bobby Uhlenbrock. “Our technology helps teams exploring mass timber get a bill of materials in days, saving weeks.”

Switching to mass timber on a project is a much different process that requires the right set up. The materials can add to the costs, but there are time savings because it can go together quicker on site, which also leads to labor savings.

“With emerging materials, it’s hard to get accurate costs,” Uhlenbrock said. “Usually, project leads end up putting in a huge contingency budget as an uncertainty tax that actually compounds as it goes through.”

Last year, Generate.design worked on more than 100 projects that spanned from residential to data centers that want to lower their carbon footprint.

The bottom line for all the projects is the desire to build with more sustainable materials and with Generate.design’s calculations, mass timber offers about a 30% reduction in carbon versus concrete. Plus, adding in mass timber’s reuse, it can be carbon negative.

“Mass timber buildings constructed with CLT or glulam sequester carbon, storing it inside the timber’s fibers for the life of the building,” explained William Richards, the editorial director and co-founder of brand development firm Team Three . “They are a fraction of the weight of buildings made of concrete and steel. As prefabricated panels, they can be built in a fraction of the time of buildings made with concrete and steel, thereby lowering their embodied carbon. Many of the pieces used to make a mass timber building may also be reused or recycled in 20 or 30 or 50 years if it's decided that the building is no longer useful.”

While most of the mass timber projects are large scale, Richards writes about the sustainable benefits of mass timber in single family projects as a solution that’s stronger than steel and can solve climate change challenges. The book, Against the Grain: Mass Timber in the Home , is another proof point for the value of how product is sourced and the channels it travels to be constructed into a home.

Some project owners are looking at how mass timber contributes to the residents’ health benefits by providing a biophilic environment that improves heart rate and cognitive functions.

Mass Timber And Intersection Of Biophilia

The rise of biophilic design, or using products and materials to connect with nature, is another growth area for mass timber. Biophilic design also has scientifically proven benefits. A 2007 study reported that exposure to wooden environments can reduce blood pressure by 10%, decrease heart rate by 6%, and reduce stress by 15%.

Not only that, a 2008 study found that on top of making the resident healthier, it contributes to being smarter. Biophilic elements, including wood, improve cognitive function by about 8% and increase positive emotions by 12%. Two more studies after this one supported those findings and showed up to a 12% reduction in stress response and a 15% boost to cognitive performance.

Mass timber producer, Mercer, showcases wood’s natural appearance and tactile texture in its projects to leverage those biophilic principles.

Mercer has used cross laminated timber for several residential projects across the country, including an eight-story housing development in Portland and a three-story project that is underway in Des Moines.

Those projects will benefit from mass timber’s ability to act as a carbon sink, helping mitigate climate change, along with being from a renewable source. It also offers natural insulating properties that ultimately can reduce heating and cooling costs. Mercer has found that it can offer performance and durability that is comparable to traditional materials like concrete and steel.

While these sustainability benefits are generous, so are the finances.

The Business Of Mass Timber

A developer in Bellevue, Washington, called developed by DASH (Downtown Action to Save Housing) has a proposal out for an eight-acre site that will have five mass timber buildings.

The site will become part of EverGlen Village, a mixed-use community designed to set a new standard for affordable living by providing more than 1,000 affordable homes for seniors.

Mass timber has had building code restrictions limiting the height of buildings--the tallest currently is The Ascent in Milwaukee at 25 stories.

Uhlenbrook notes that property owners are able to charge a premium because of the upscale look, allowing them to command higher rents.

Not everyone sees the silver lining in the growth of mass timber.

While demand for healthy products exists, Gareth Hayes, senior partner at research and consulting firm Roland Berger, says it is focused more on high end homes.

One healthy product that he is skeptic of is mass timber.

“There is a price premium over green steel so you can do a better job with green by using steel versus mass timber,” Hayes said. “With steel and concrete, you can build more density and higher. I do understand the logic of mass timber and it has its place, but in terms of pure sustainability, as long as there is recycled content in steel and concrete, you end up with a more sustainable building structure.”

Building codes also are slowing down adoption of mass timber. For instance, while there are mass timber projects underway in Florida, the Florida Building Commission recently voted down 22 provisions for its building code related to mass timber construction.

The Future Of Mass Timber Remains Promising

Mark & Spark Solutions reported in May 2026 that the mass timber construction market was valued at $390 million in 2025. In addition, new regulations to lower carbon and changing building codes will support an annual growth rate of 13.1%, reaching $1.07 billion by 2033.

In 2009, there were only three mass timber projects in the U.S., and today, WoodWorks is tracking 2,833 projects that were either fully constructed or actively in progress. That’s close to a 1,000 times growth in less than two decades.

That growth will give us places to live and work that boost our brains and help us smile more. At the same time, the popularity of mass timber can lower the risk of climate disasters that have been threatening so much of the built environment.

With that said, it’s fair to say the future of mass timber is very promising.