Mass Timber Group Show: Sustainable Building Experts
The "Mass Timber Group Show: Sustainable Building Experts” is a podcast hosted by Brady and Nic, two industry advocates for the field of sustainable construction. In each episode, they interview thought leaders, industry powerhouses, and true supporters of the sustainable building movement. They cover the entire sustainable building spectrum, from forest management to final construction of buildings.
The podcast is designed to educate and inspire listeners about the benefits of Mass Timber. Mass timber is a sustainable building material that has several advantages over traditional materials like concrete and steel. It is strong, lightweight, and renewable, and it can be used to build a variety of structures, from small homes to large skyscrapers.
In addition to discussing the benefits of Mass Timber, Brady and Nic also explore the challenges of sustainable building as a whole. They talk about the importance of forest management, the need for government support, and the challenges of educating both the public and the building industry about the benefits of sustainable building.
The Mass Timber Group Show is a valuable resource for anyone interested in learning more about sustainable building. It is a thought-provoking and informative podcast that will leave you inspired to make a difference.
Here are some of the topics that have been covered on the show:
- The benefits of Mass Timber construction
- The challenges of sustainable building
- Forest management
- Government support for sustainable building
- Educating building industry professionals about sustainable building
The Mass Timber Group Show is available to listen to on a variety of platforms, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and YouTube.
If you are interested in learning more about sustainable building, I encourage you to check out The Mass Timber Group Show. It is a great resource for information, inspiration, and action.
Mass Timber Group Show: Sustainable Building Experts
Strategies to Advance Mass Timber Adoption w/Sandra Lupien
Sandra Lupien, the Director of MassTimber@MSU, shares how Michigan is launching into the #MassTimber world, the strategies and partnerships making it happen, and how you can help advance the industry too.
We learn about the advancement of the Mass Timber industry in Michigan - and what other states can learn from it. Policies from state and federal agencies can have major impacts on Mass Timber and Sandra gives us examples. Then, we talk about how advocacy and community engagement can help shape mass timber ecosystems.
Connect with Sandra on LinkedIn
Visit MassTimber@MSU'S Website
Email Sandra Directly at: LupienSA@msu.edu
Looking for your mass timber community? Attend the 2025 Mass Timber Group Summit in Denver Co - Aug 20-22nd!
So the building creates this beautiful hub where students love to spend time in working in state-of-the-art laboratories and studying together or socializing in collaboration spaces. Our program Mass Timber at MSU uses this building as a learning laboratory, especially for the architecture, engineering and construction industry in our state.
Speaker 2:This is the Mass Timber Group Show. I'm Nick.
Speaker 3:And I'm Brady and we talk to mass timber experts. Today we caught up with Sandra Lupia, the Director of Mass Timber at Michigan State University.
Speaker 2:Sandra talked to us about MSU's work with mass timber, the policies needed to move the industry forward and why mass timber is a driving force for combating climate change.
Speaker 3:If you like these podcasts, subscribing to the channel is the biggest compliment you can give us. So with that, let's get into it.
Speaker 1:I'm Sandra Sandra Lupien and I lead the program called Mass Timber at MSU.
Speaker 1:To it, I'm Sandra Sandra Lupien and I lead the program called Mass Timber at MSU.
Speaker 1:And just for a quick intro, mass Timber at MSU is a program within the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Michigan State University, which is a big land-grant university located in East Lansing, next to our capital city, which is Lansing, and Mass Timber at MSU is really focused on advancing mass timber construction and manufacture in Michigan, the Great Lakes region and beyond, especially by doing the things that a land grant university and a land grant university is one with like a three prong mission for education, teaching and outreach and extension. So we do all of those things in order to serve this mission of getting more mass timber buildings and hopefully realizing mass timber in Michigan. And we work in very close partnership with the state agencies, especially the Department of Natural Resources, which sees mass timber as a really important economic opportunity. Michigan is a heavily forested state and it has the most acres of forest owned by a state in the United States. So we see mass timber as a major economic opportunity for our state. So our program really helps support those goals.
Speaker 2:Plus, the program at Michigan State itself is very unique because the building is mass timber. So you create this environment for people and students to come learn. I was curious is it more of like a graduate level class, or let's say, a student wants to come, or can anybody come out there and learn about mass timber? What's the entry to get in?
Speaker 1:So we have on our campus the STEM teaching and learning facility. This is the second building in Michigan to use cross laminated timber and certainly the largest mass timber building in our to use cross-laminated timber and certainly the largest mass timber building in our state. To this point. It opened in July of 2021, which is the same time that we really formally and fully launched our program Mass Timber at MSU. The building. It houses laboratories and classrooms for science, technology, engineering and mathematics students, and the curriculum in the building is not Mass Timber specific. It's really these gateway courses that students who are freshmen and sophomores need to take in order to pursue STEM majors. So the building creates this beautiful hub where students love to spend time in working in state-of-the-art laboratories and studying together or socializing in collaboration spaces. Our program Mass Timber at MSU uses this building as a learning laboratory, especially for the architecture, engineering and construction industry in our state.
Speaker 1:So, as it is across the country, mass timber is still a new technology in Michigan to many AEC industry practitioners, right, so they come to us. They've heard that we have a mass timber building on our campus and they want to know. Can we look at the building? Can we talk to you? Can we talk to your project team to learn how to approach doing a mass timber building? We've got a bunch of clients asking for it. We've got a specific client right now that we're working with. What can we learn from you?
Speaker 1:So to date we've taken more than 2,300 people through our building to help them really understand how to use mass timber in their projects. But also we have policymakers who come through who are interested in mass timber and what mass timber at MSU is doing to lead in the space here. Certainly forestry, forest products industry folks who are like well, we're following mass Timber. We're not sure what our role is yet, but we want to see this building and certainly we do presentations for students in the building and other members of our faculty in the community. So we really optimize the presence of the building as a way to teach the general public, specific stakeholders and others about Mass Timber.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you guys have a lot going on with the program. Is there anything specific that really excites you?
Speaker 1:Everything excites me about the program. We're building so much momentum around mass timber in Michigan, but I think the work that I focus on in particular in my role as director of the program is working to build this ecosystem of a connected ecosystem of people who are ready to collaborate to make mass timber happen in Michigan, and it's working right. We have a community of hundreds of people in Michigan who are engaged in one way or another in mass timber. Every December now we host an event called the Michigan Mass Timber Update. We have more than 150 people come out for that event again in December in Michigan Not necessarily an easy task to hear about what is happening in Michigan this year, to come together to really understand that and then get re-energized for the year to come, saying you know, okay, we know that we're in this.
Speaker 1:We're definitely not in it alone. This is a big movement and I'm energized to reinvest my time, my energy, my expertise in creating and fulfilling my role in this mass timber ecosystem. So that's a super exciting thing. In March, we launched what we're calling the Michigan Mass Timber Community of Practice. These are quarterly virtual meetings that anybody who's engaged in mass timber in Michigan from whether they're building buildings engaged in mass timber in Michigan, from whether they're building buildings, whether they're interested in manufacturing, whether they're, you know, a real estate developer or public building owner. Anyone who's thinking about mass timber can come and ask questions to our team at Mass Timber at MSU and to our co-hosts, woodworks and the American Wood Council. So we're really creating this technical assistance and peer learning community that can just continue to help build knowledge and advance these goals.
Speaker 1:In March, at our first meeting, we had more than 60 people show up to participate, so really a dynamic situation. In addition to kind of this growing community and the outreach and engagement that we're doing, certainly we're very excited about our research and curriculum development portfolio. You know it's our program, is not just me, I'm the person who's overseeing the program, leading the program, but there's a growing community of affiliated faculty at MSU across a bunch of different departments and disciplines. Faculty at MSU across a bunch of different departments and disciplines. So certainly within forestry, within our School of Planning, design and Construction, engineering, agriculture and resource economics, packaging all these different disciplines coming together. So I'm happy to share a little bit about some of the research that we're engaged in if that would be of interest.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, absolutely hey. We're going to get back to the podcast in just a second, but first I have a question for you Are you somebody looking to build a mass timber project? If the answer is yes, then you need to put together an experienced team.
Speaker 2:Our partners at Cornerstone Timber Frames are leaders in heavy timber construction and have 30 plus years of experience, which means you can trust them to get the job done right.
Speaker 3:They collaborate with Nordic Structures to bring you the highest quality FSC certified mass timber available. They also have some of the most advanced fabrication technology in the industry, so your project goes up smoothly without costly on-site modification or delays.
Speaker 2:That means they have the experience, network and technology to make your next mass timber project a success.
Speaker 3:Learn more about Cornerstone Timber Frames by clicking the link in the show notes below Quick thing though when people think mass timber states, michigan might not be at the top of their mind, but obviously you guys are doing a whole lot with mass timber in Michigan. What's been like the evolution of Michigan really entering mass timber? And then like where do you see it going in the future?
Speaker 1:Sure, yeah. So back in like 2015, 2016, as has happened in other states, right, you know it starts with a person, right, and people started just bubbling up interest about mass timber. Oh, have you heard about this? And we should really be thinking about this. So my understanding of the origin story of mass timber in Michigan is somebody at the Michigan DNR came to somebody at MSU and other like Michigan Tech was also starting to get interested and started saying, like, what should we be doing if we want to create a mass timber economy in the state? And that led to people starting to have conversations together. It led to planning a summit that ended up happening online because of COVID, director of our forestry department at MSU, and my colleague George Burghorn in construction management and some other faculty at MSU going to MSU leadership and saying, hey, we know you're building this new STEM teaching and learning facility. What if that could be a mass timber building? What if we could then leverage that building as a learning laboratory? So this is really like the origin of it, right, and again, dnr continuing to see the Department of Natural Resources seeing mass timber as a really important rural economic development opportunity here in Michigan and thinking about what should we do was that when we approach prospective mass timber manufacturers whether that's existing manufacturers from other parts of the country or the world or whether that's forest products manufacturers in the state about potentially making mass timber here in Michigan, what they're saying is we don't see the demand, we're not ready to do that there. We don't see the demand. So the stakeholders DNR and MSU said well, let's figure out how we can support market development in Michigan. And that's kind of the genesis of this role that I have the great privilege of filling as leading this mass timber at MSU program. And then our program in general really focused first on how can we educate the AEC industry and the real estate industry about why mass timber is so great and how can we support their efforts to get more Mass Timber into buildings in the state, and there's been a lot of momentum and success along those lines.
Speaker 1:We now have more than 45 projects Mass Timber projects in some stage of completion, planning, development or construction in the state. The cool thing about that is they're all different types of projects. We have a veterinary clinic that got built. We have our building on our campus. We have a complex of multiple buildings in a small city on Lake Michigan where there's condos and a multi-use building and there's also going to be a hotel there all mass timber. We have a small affordable housing project in Northern Lower Peninsula. We have a boat building school that's building a mass timber building in the rural Upper Peninsula. So it's like all different types of communities, all different types of buildings and in all corners of our state and for me that means people are seeing something for themselves in mass timber and that to me says we're building in the right direction and we're certainly going to see mass timber moving into the mainstream obviously all across the country, including here in Michigan.
Speaker 3:Yeah, with all of those existing buildings and then specifically in Michigan. How can you leverage those projects to generate more interest and support kind of moving forward for future projects?
Speaker 1:For future projects? Great question. I think the more you have mass timber buildings that people can go in and see and feel and touch and ask questions about and just experience, the more projects you're going to have and the more experienced project teams you have in a region or a geography, the more quickly and readily and ably we'll be able to build mass timber buildings. Experience reduces barriers and we really need to see that right now. Right, we need project teams that understand the pre-construction process is a little bit different with mass timber. We have to collaborate early, we have to collaborate often. We need to commit to mass timber from the start of the project, as more project teams know that. We're going to see fewer cases where mass timber is value engineered out, usually because of perceived cost differences Right, but really it's often like we don't really know how to estimate this stuff yet. Really, having more and more projects builds more and more experience For us. More and more projects also generates more interest in manufacturing mass timber in the state, and that's really, really important for us in Michigan. Right, we want somebody to be making mass timber in Michigan. We want somebody to be doing value-added fabrication of mass timber in Michigan. We're Michigan, we know how to make stuff. We're really, really good at this. We have proof. Come and make mass timber here. That's what we want to have happen. So as we see more and more demand, it's going to become more and more appealing for somebody to make mass timber here.
Speaker 1:To support that effort we have funding from Michigan DNR, our program Mass Timber at MSU that we're using to conduct a supply chain analysis. So looking at a bunch of different scenarios that a manufacturer might apply to mass to make mass timber in Michigan. You know what if I want to try to get all my wood from Michigan? What if I'm trying to get it from the Great Lakes region? What if I'm looking more broadly? What is? What does that all look like, combined with transportation contexts and workforce and where? I might cite a mass timber plant in Michigan? So we're working on the supply chain analysis and then we're also conducting a companion demand survey. The demand survey looks at demand across eight Great Lakes states, so giving prospective manufacturers some idea of, within the immediate Great Lakes region, who might want to buy product from them, what kind of buildings are they building, how much mass timber are they planning to use in these buildings, et cetera, et cetera, to help them really think about what is the right manufacturing or value-added fabrication model for them in our state.
Speaker 2:Can they go? Or can a person go to your website and find these?
Speaker 1:Not yet, but they will be able to in the fall. We're getting really close to completing these analyses and we're going to be rolling out a formal report, more like an academic report, but then we're also going to be rolling out smaller, more digestible deliverables that prospective manufacturers can really use, and we'll also be working to conduct outreach within the industry to share these findings with prospective manufacturers as well as policymakers anybody who's kind of engaging in the mass timber space and has the ability to gain value from what we're creating.
Speaker 2:Well, we hope to help. If you're looking for a little bit more of a loud speaker to announce some of the findings, we'd love to share that on the podcast for a round two. But earlier I'm really glad that you talked about how one person turns into two and then it turns into a team and then it turns into maybe a coalition or mass timber at MSU, but it's not a superhero. I think more people need to get out there on the front lines, and I know you had talked about supportive policies, about mass timber. What are some of these policies that we should be looking at?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd like to say mass timber. Champions come from all corners. It's fascinating if you go to the International Mass Timber Conference, for example, and sit around and talk to anybody about how did I get interested in mass timber. It's always something different, there's something unexpected. It's not always linear, but right now, yeah, policy champions can be really important to helping us move mass timber into the mainstream.
Speaker 1:So I'm sure that listeners and viewers are all very familiar with this concept of the model for adopting new technologies. Right, it's like there's first academic research and government investment and it gets you over this initial hump, right, and then you drop into this valley, the valley of death, and you have to figure out how to get past the valley of death in order to move whatever the new technology is from mainstream adoption and then over this next hump into mainstream, so that you know it's really important. Right now, I think we're at the point of had a lot of you know. We've had some government and academic investment. We know what to do, we know how to use mass timber. We know that we're still seeing it get value engineered out or not, being the first choice for a project, right. So now we're starting to climb up this little mountain, you know, like up the little mountain but we can slip back down if we don't have some policy incentives in place to help us get over the hump. There's no green technology that's ever succeeded without supportive policies to get it over that hump right. We've had federally sourced grants that have been programmed through states for grants that real estate developers can use to include solar panels on multifamily housing, programs like that. We've seen all kinds of grant programs like that. Really important for us to have a program like that for mass timber. I think at this time right, you guys probably hear it all the time A lot of the people who are tuned into this probably hear it all the time from developers like are there any incentives to help me choose mass timber? It's not always mass timber that's the cost differential in the project, but in our current construction context, as we all know, everything's really expensive right now. So if an incentive can help somebody make the choice to use mass timber over something else, then that's a win and we could see that's where a supportive policy can help. We've seen the province of British Columbia implement a process like this through the British Columbia Mass Timber Action Plan. They're programming grants of just roughly I'm going to be super hand-wavy right now $250,000 to $500,000 to just help address that gap, to give developers something that they can add to their funding stack to help them choose mass timber. Something like that could be very helpful right now.
Speaker 1:Right, we can also look at procurement policies. We're starting to see them emerging. Last year, you likely know, the Department of Defense implemented a new procurement policy saying new mass timber buildings built for the US Army are going to look at mass timber basically first and really do a thorough examination of it and prove why you can't use it. And the why is really. They're connected to the building use case. Is mass timber the best material for the building use case? And if it is, then we're going to use it. That's an amazing procurement policy that will have a massive impact. Massive impact on mass timber adoption and demand in US markets and anywhere that the Army's building around the world. Very powerful, right?
Speaker 1:We know that some states and the federal government are looking at buy clean policies related to building materials, and this is one that I think it's worth actually digging into a little bit and thinking about.
Speaker 1:How does that apply to mass timber? So a buy clean policy is one where you know, say it's the state of Colorado. I'll use Colorado because that's where you are. The state of Colorado is wanting to reduce the carbon footprints of its buildings via the choices that it makes about the materials that it's using. Right, if, with a buy clean policy, it's saying that, okay, we're going to, once we design the building, when it's time to procure the materials, we're going to do a comparison based on environmental product declarations, epds, and decide which of the materials in this materials class is the best materials choice for this building. What I just said about in this materials class is really important, right, because a buy clean policy allows you to compare steel against steel, concrete against concrete, wood against wood, et cetera, at the procurement stage. But now there's starting to be a new type of procurement policy model that's being advanced, and I know American Wood Council has been involved in thinking about this a bit Build clean. Have you guys heard of it? Build clean.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, super interesting, I think, just from the perspective of efficacy and effectiveness, right, because Build Clean intervenes in the procurement process way earlier, right? So with Build Clean the idea is I'm a state, I want to build a new building, I want to think about materials use. I have to do whole building lifecycle analysis now at the beginning of the process, during design, and that's where I compare which materials I want to procure and there you can compare materials type or class against other material classes, right? So steel against concrete, concrete against wood, wood against steel, and figure out from the whole building lifecycle perspective which material is the best choice.
Speaker 1:I've heard, I've heard AWC say it is really trying to design the carbon out of the building instead of kind of trying at procurement to make reductions in the amount of carbon after you've already designed the building. So I think those are really interesting concepts, both buy clean and build clean, and I've been thinking about it a little bit recently from you know, like again from that like efficacy and effectiveness perspective, and thinking like can you combine build clean with buy clean so you have build clean at the beginning and then buy clean at the end, and that way that creates a reality in which we're also trying to, you know, create incentives for mass timber producers to make the most carbon beneficial materials in that material class. So always with the carrots, Always with the carrots.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, and so there's you laid out like a lot of different policy paths or things that we could explore for people that are listening. What's like something that the average everyday person could do to kind of help further those policies, or put it on the radar or shift the needle, if you will, just by like one person taking a specific action? Are there, are there any things like that that stand out?
Speaker 1:Oh wow. It depends on what your platform is right. If you're an architect, you can always be thinking about asking your clients to choose mass timber, really working to push your clients to choose mass timber from the beginning, so that you're designing and planning for a mass timber building from the start. You're not trying to compare apples to oranges. You're always comparing apples to apples throughout your process and really trying to get your best value, your best design, your best carbon benefits. All of it is optimized if you choose it from the start. So both real estate developers and architects should be thinking about that all the time. Yeah, I think I'm going to leave it there.
Speaker 3:So can you unpack for us the climate, forest, forestry like back to the source, like side of mass timber, because everybody kind of looks at mass timber is like yes, it's a, it's a better building material for the environment, for climate, for sustainability, but what does that actually mean? And can you trace that back to you know the forest that this comes out for?
Speaker 1:Yes, and I think I'll do this by kind of sharing a little bit how I got interested in mass timber, because that story kind of aligns with this overall forest climate built environment value proposition. So my background before becoming forestry I call myself a mass timber cheerleader before becoming somebody who's really engaged in the mass timber space was I worked for a long time in the nonprofit sector and I also worked in the public sector, primarily on issues related to climate change, sustainability, environmental protection and sometimes that intersected with community development. And when I was in my early 40s I decided I wanted to do a master's degree and I wanted to do a master of public policy. So I went to UC Berkeley. I was living in California. I lived there for 20 years before I moved back to Michigan a few years ago. So I lived in California, really, really focused on what is the next iteration of my career, where I can have the most impact on helping to create effective climate solutions. Right, I really wanted to be engaged in that. I wanted to kind of turn it up, I want to like turn up the volume a little bit on that, and so I started this public policy program at UC Berkeley. I'd been living in the Bay Area for a really long time and was really focused on the idea of you know, we need to address sea level rise, we need to address urban heat islands.
Speaker 1:And then, right when I started that policy degree in 2016, this was when California was facing, at that point, the worst drought it had ever faced, and part of what was happening because of that drought is that bark beetles as you know, in Colorado, bark beetles were infesting California forests, especially in the Sierra Nevada, and hundreds of millions of trees were dead and even more were dying. And I had this friend who was from Colorado and had moved to California. His name is Sam, and Sam was like man this is a really bad problem. This beetle kill problem in California seems to be getting even worse than it is in Colorado. We're like, yeah, and from a climate perspective, I was like this is terrible. If these trees burn or rot in large quantities, all of the carbon that they're storing is going to be emitted into the atmosphere, where it's going to continue to contribute to and exacerbate climate change, and this is not good. So Sam and I thought, well, what can we do with? What can someone do with some of that wood in order to keep it from burning or rotting in the forest. Can we pull some of it out and use it in products that maybe store carbon? So first we started making furniture. We started a furniture company making furniture out of beetle kill pine and we're having a good time doing that. We were selling some furniture, we were doing crowdfunding all the things you do.
Speaker 1:You know people were excited about it. Especially, people were really excited about this idea of oh, I can have a piece of furniture made from a tree from a forest that I'm familiar with, and if I do that, it reduces both wildfire risk and the risk of losing this carbon into the atmosphere. So it's part of a climate solution. That's amazing. And we said, yes, it is amazing, but the way we're trying to address it is too small. There's so much of this wood. There's small diameter green trees and forests that need to be removed in order to achieve healthier forest density and to reduce the risk of high severity wildfire, where we lose a lot of carbon to the atmosphere. So we're like well, what else can you make from this wood, especially something that would store carbon for a long time?
Speaker 1:And somebody at the US Forest Service said to us have you heard of mass timber? We're like what is it? What is it? And that's how we got interested in it from the perspective of can we manufacture this stuff? And so we were in a business incubator at the time and trying to. You know, we were doing all the things you do making the business case, developing a business plan, pitching, and realizing that we were trying to use this historically low value wood that doesn't have ready entry into mainstream markets, and so policy interventions might be helpful in making that wood easier to access and move into products like mass timber. So I did my master's thesis on how could California remove the barriers to the manufacture and adoption of mass timber For me, and then we decided not to make mass timber anymore. California didn't think that they needed a person to be the mass timber cheerleader, so ultimately I was able to come to Michigan and do it here. But I think my pathway of becoming interested in mass timber really helps us understand that kind of forest to product benefit.
Speaker 1:So forests are really important. Right, we know there's photosynthesis. I don't need to tell you that. I think sometimes we forget that photosynthesis isn't just trees absorbing carbon dioxide and breathing out oxygen, but it's also taking in the carbon dioxide and converting it to carbon, which is then stored in the wood of the tree, the roots, the soil, all of that. So that is carbon sequestration. This is familiar to most people who are tuned in and listening right now.
Speaker 1:But, importantly, then the trees will store that carbon and trees store carbon and they continue to absorb carbon throughout their lives. But the rate of carbon absorption typically slows down as a tree gets older and then naturally at some point a tree is going to either die or it will, before its natural death, will burn in the forest due to a fire, and when that happens we lose the carbon dioxide. When the tree dies, it releases methane and carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases and obviously some tree die-off is natural and good and replenishes the soil. All of that is good. But the rate at which we're now starting to see trees burning, especially burning early, is alarming and it's something that's putting too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Speaker 1:So if we're creating forest conditions where there's less forest density, where we're strategically managing forests and harvesting trees and moving some of those trees into products that then can store that carbon for a long time, we're actually extending the carbon benefits of trees right, we're making sure that they're storing carbon even longer.
Speaker 1:We are keeping forests as forests because we're placing economic value on them right.
Speaker 1:In addition to the value that we place on forests for their ability to clean water, to clean air, to provide habitat, to provide recreation, to provide beauty all the things forests do when they provide economic value it also creates an incentive for us as humans to preserve them, to protect them, to replenish them, to plant more of them.
Speaker 1:So this is why this forest carbon climate building value proposition is so important and why I think it's really important for people to understand that there are ways that forest products really do benefit forest health, especially when we're making sure that our forest management practices remain sustainable and focused on long-term resilience and survival and thriving of forests, and we're able to do that with good, and we're able to do that with good policy and we're able to do that with good practices. So I just like to talk about that a lot. I think there was a time, I think, in my life and my career, when I didn't understand that very well and would be very alarmed about the idea of cutting trees, and I think we find that a lot when we speak to people about forest products and forest management and wood. So I just think it's very important for people to have a clear understanding of how that works.
Speaker 2:Well, knowing is the first thing, and that's the biggest hurdle that we have to get across is to get this knowledge in front of people, and so you've already done these incredible things at the Mass Timber at MSU, knowing that this fight is far from over. What's next in the next two to three, maybe five-year horizon? We're in the director's shoes. What do you see is next and what would you like to achieve?
Speaker 1:Yeah, very much. I want to see and this is not like me, by myself. This is like I would love to see in Michigan soon somebody saying, yes, I want to make mass timber in this state. I want to be doing value-added fabrication of mass timber in this state. I see that in Michigan and in the surrounding region people are wanting to use mass timber. There is a place for me to be making mass timber in Michigan Super critical. You know, if people are interested in talking about that, it can be a great place to start and we can connect folks with folks at the state to talk about how to make that a reality. Very important We've got to be increasing throughout the country our domestic supply of mass timber.
Speaker 1:We're going to have more and more demand as we see more and more policies going into place, like the DOD policy, we're going to have more demand. Being able to supply it from close to home is not only exciting from a carbon and climate perspective right, just reducing the transportation footprint of the industry but I think from just the story perspective and the emotional connection people feel to the building when they know that the wood came from a forest that they're familiar with or a forest that's close to home. I think this probably happens to you guys a lot. I'm constantly hearing people on the AEC side. I think I always thought I would expect it from architects, but I'm hearing it especially from people who are building the buildings, the construction folks are like, why can't we get this mass timber close to home? And I'm like, well, we can soon, but let's work on that together so that we can have that. People really care and I think that's really refreshing. So having the manufacture take place here in Michigan.
Speaker 1:But also, I think something that really interests me a great deal is thinking across the Great Lakes region about what does a mass timber economy look? Fabrication happening in Michigan, a real economy and a real ecosystem isn't constrained by the borders of a single state. So how can we be smart so that our region is thinking about what's the best way to build out a holistic mass timber ecosystem that meets the range of demand needs in our region but also across the country, so that we're not all trying to do the same thing at once? Because if we all try to do the same thing at once, then we're like drowning each other out. But if we think about what are our strengths in this part of the region? What are our weaknesses, what are our interests? What type of feet? What are our wood baskets looking like? What's our workforce look like? If we can do that together, then we can create something that's really, really robust, that can meet needs in a very powerful way. So that's something that interests me a great deal.
Speaker 1:Another win, I think, for us would be I said that we have more than 45 mass timber projects in our pipeline. I call about 27 of those certain and about six of those probable, and then there's another dozen or so that we don't know. Maybe mass timber will get value engineered out. I hope not.
Speaker 1:So a win for me would be if we and our partners can provide the support to those project teams and maybe we'll start to see policy incentives even to ensure that every building that wants to be a mass timber building here in Michigan and everywhere gets to be a mass timber building. Let's let them be what they want to be, right. So that would be another win for us. And certainly our university, michigan State University, is exploring pathways that we can add more value to the industry on our campus through our facilities and adding to our facilities so we can be a more direct partner to industry, whether that's research and development or product testing, et cetera. How can we add value there? So if people are interested in talking to me about what that might look like and what a partnership might look like, I am here for those conversations.
Speaker 3:So if people wanted to have those conversations with you, how would they get a hold of you or your team?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really easy to email me. That's a good place to start. My email is my last name, l-u-p-i-e-n plus S-A, so L-U-P-I-E-n-s-a at msuedu Good way to find me. Our website is masstimbermsuedu and then we're all over. We're on all the social media platforms, but we're most active on LinkedIn at masstimber, at msu, and I'm also on LinkedIn, so you can just find me there easily. I get very excited to talk to people about masstimber.
Speaker 3:So I tend to respond pretty quickly. Are you surprised? No, LinkedIn is where everybody lives in this industry.
Speaker 1:It's true, it's true.
Speaker 3:Well, this has been a fascinating conversation. Thank you so much for spending your time with us unpacking everything that you're doing. Our last question is something along the lines of if you had one minute to share a message with somebody that's interested in mass timber, considering exploring the industry, what would you spend that minute telling them?
Speaker 1:I think that mass timber is an opportunity for us to I think of it a little bit of as a multi-tool, right. It allows us to take action to improve forest health and resilience of our forests. It helps us reduce the carbon footprint of our built environments and it enables us to live and work and learn in buildings that are more beautiful and have measurable benefits for our mental health, our health and our productivity. So it's kind of a win win win and a very aesthetically pleasing one. So I think I would tell folks that and I would also just tell people that kind of this mass timber community that's developed across the US and across North America is so friendly and collaborative and helpful that it's not getting started, comes with the ability to get your questions answered by a lot of different people who care about building not just their own business but about building movement and this mass timber reality right in our country. So that's pretty unusual and really special.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you kindly. You will surely see us out there on the front lines helping you change policy, and we welcome everyone else out there to do the same thing. Also, let us know when that new study has come out. We can do a round two and try to get that out to the real world. So thank you so much for coming on, sandra, and we will talk to you soon. Have a great day.
Speaker 1:Thanks Nick. Thanks Brady, it's been great being here.
