Mass Timber Group Show: Sustainable Building Experts

Trending in Timber: Uber for Logs + Mass Timber Insurance Playbook

• Brady & Nic

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How can fallen trees become a cornerstone of sustainable construction, and what’s being done to simplify insurance for mass timber projects? Cambium Carbon is leading a revolution in upcycling urban wood waste, using their "Uber for Logs" app to turn fallen trees into valuable products like dimensional lumber, siding, and decking—all while replanting trees to close the sustainability loop. Meanwhile, the new Mass Timber Insurance Playbook is tackling one of the industry's biggest challenges by providing actionable strategies to align insurers, developers, and builders, ensuring mass timber projects are both insurable and cost-effective.

Looking for your mass timber community? Attend the 2025 Mass Timber Group Summit in Denver Co - Aug 20-22nd!

Nic:

go. Well, this cambium has created a mobile app that connects these, these trees that we're going to go to waste or just think of, like something in your backyard where you're like, hey, I got to get this thing out of here. It looks like it's going to, you know, fricking, tip over and shatter the old grandma's house next door. So we're trying, we're trying to get a little, you know, get out there sooner. So this is a way to take those, the lumber, the felt logs, bring it into the sawmills, into the manufacturing, create the two by material, two by four, four, two by four, two by six, two by eight, dimensional. Lumber the boards like one by four, 10 foot for like decking or like siding or like tables, literally. I mean, it's endless.

Brady:

All right, guys, here's what's trending in timber this week. I've got something pretty exciting to talk about that I've been looking at and watching for about a year now. It's something that the UK has had that we have not had until now. I got a little hint that it was dropping this week from a conference that I went to, and I'm glad to see that it's finally out. It's going to be something that's pretty exciting, so we're going to dive into that. Nick, what are you going to look at today?

Nic:

Well, you want me to jump into it.

Brady:

Yeah, let's do it.

Nic:

I got a lot of good stuff. All right, let me share my screen real quick. I thought this was one of the coolest things that I've seen in a while and it spawned out of when we were at the Colorado Mass Timber Coalition Conference here a couple of weeks ago in Fort Collins, we ran into a couple of guys Charles Gale, you know he was. He's been with like Smart Lamb, wealth of knowledge. He's like he's an awesome guy. You got to get to know him. Anyways, his one of his business partners, paul Timmons, was there. What they had talked about is this company that's called Cambium. Cambium caught my interest the other day because, look at this, the Ben Christensen, the co-founder of Cambium, is what it is. It's a, it's a mobile app, it's like it's Uber for for logs, isn't that? What, like Charles, was trying to say is the catchphrase.

Brady:

So they got yeah, they got. One aspect of their business is Uber for logs, but like what they do yeah, they got. One aspect of their business is Uber for logs, but like what they do holistically is they basically upcycle all of the fallen timber timber that goes to waste, I think on their website they talk about, you know, decay, disease, debris, stuff like that and they basically capture all this fallen timber and then they turn it into useful products, and I think what you're talking about right now is us is part of what they do Uber for Logs, where they connect arborists with log trucks to get it sent to mills and basically trees that would have gone to the landfill now get put into products like what you're looking at and sharing on their website right now, and I think their product coin term is carbon smart wood.

Nic:

Yeah, so they had just won best a list of best inventions of 2024. And I thought this was incredibly Epic. Half of my problems come from logistical issues to be able to get logs and dimensional lumber from the sawmill to the customer. Old, it's like it's. It's just like it's built from the 1950s still and it really hasn't been updated. And the concept here is there's a lot of waste. That happens and occurs. So just think about, like storms, right, you know, that crazy storm that came through Missoula Montana a couple months ago absolutely ravished the city, you know.

Brady:

I think they said 10,000 trees in the city alone went down.

Nic:

Staggering numbers. I didn't know it was 10,000. That's insane. So those 10,000 trees take a look at this end up in a dump or up in smoke.

Brady:

So quick note on that, because we don't have the infrastructure to handle or do anything with that. Every single one of those trees went to a giant dumping center and then they brought in like the biggest wood chipper in North America, whatever, and just chipped it all up and they're going to ship it to Idaho for, like, I think, biofuel or something like that. So it's not getting used, it's just getting chipped and burned.

Nic:

And this is a problem in every single city, in every single state, like period, like the people don't under. Think of, like there's urban forests. So you talked about 10,000 trees. Where do they go? Well, this Cambium has created a mobile app that connects these trees that were going to go to waste. Or just think of like something in your backyard where you're like, hey, I got to get this thing out of here. It looks like it's going to, you know, freaking tip over and shatter the old grandma's house next door. So we're trying to get out there sooner.

Nic:

So this is a way to take the lumber, the felt logs, bring it into the sawmills, into the manufacturing, create the two-by material, two-by-four, two-by-six, two-by-eight dimensional lumber, the boards like one by four, 10 foot for like decking or like siding or like tables, literally, I mean, it's endless cabinetry. But what happens? What I thought was really cool was they also replant the tree where it fell over, you know. So, so it's a full cycle life chain, which is just impressive. But this isn't just like you know, hey, this is a bunch of people thinking we have this dream, like they're launched, they're rocking and rolling and they're making serious waves in the world.

Nic:

This is a couple of their products that, just from what I'm kind of understanding, the things that were going to die or end up in the landfills are being upcycled into these products. It looks like that they have decking, siding, fencing, you know, lumber, and anyways, go to cambiumcarboncom Check out what they got going. They're freaking, rocking and rolling. Shout out to Charles Gale and Paul Timmons too. I don't know Ben Christensen here, I hope to. You know, kind of get to know him in the industry. Anyways, yeah, he's from Yale School of Forestry, so super connected in the world Carbon removal team. I'd love to talk to him about that.

Brady:

You know it's crazy. Maybe it's not crazy, it's very strategic. But so they hired Charles to be their director of mass timber, I believe, is his title. Don't, charles? Don't come at me if I got it wrong.

Brady:

I'm excited to see, like, what their mass timber angle comes from because, like on their website, they advertise, you know, decking, siding, fencing, things like that. But if you could start turning let's say you had 10,000, I don't know spruce, pine, fir trees that went down in Missoula and you can turn that into mass timber in like a local or regional sawmill and then ship it to one of the manufacturers, like in Montana, like SmartLam, and then turn it and bring it right back around to buildings that are going up. That's like, that's awesome. I'm I'm pretty impressed with that and I, on the on the post announcement that you were showing on Ben's page, I read a little line in there that said that they started as a Kickstarter. How crazy is that? That a bunch of guys and gals get together, they have a dream, they put it out on Kickstarter, gets public buy-in, and now they're rocking and rolling all across the nation.

Brady:

I was really excited to hear Paul and Charles talk about that Uber. For what app that you're talking about? I think it's mostly in the Northeast right now, but literally it's like arborist cuts down this tree that's going to fall on grandma's house, takes a picture of the logs, posts them Mill, says I want to buy that. It connects the truckers instantly. The truckers come up, pick it up, they get paid, the mill gets their logs, the arborist gets paid, and so there's like an incentive and like a built-in platform to basically connect the fallen tree to the end user and I think that's super cool and I think it's well-deserving of a Time Magazine best invention recognition for sure.

Nic:

It's impressive I'm kind of scrolling through all this stuff, but like this is real world already of what they've done 3.1 million board feet processed into their carbon smart wood the equivalent of 7.7, you know, almost 8,000 miles driven 147 homes of energy. They've planted almost you know 5.8 thousand trees, sequestered, 7.1 thousand.

Brady:

Well, I guess you're coming out of me 7.1 thousand tons of All right, but there was a map that I wanted to show you, yeah.

Nic:

So here's where they're already working right now, and I know that they were kind of yeah, here's a Boulder, all right, well, check them out, they're super cool. Onto the next one, melanie Nakagawa. So from Microsoft. So this is enabling a more sustainable data centers. Last week, we announced that Microsoft is pioneering the use of super strong, ultra lightweight wood in two data centers to drastically reduce embodied carbon emissions. The construction industry contributes 13.5% to global carbon emissions, especially steel and concrete. By integrating cross laminated timber CLT into our data center's designs, we are reducing the embodied carbon footprint by up to 65% compared to traditional methods such as precast concrete.

Brady:

You know what's crazy. So in the first Trending in Timber episode, we talked about Google doing their headquarters building in mass timber. Last week we talked about Walmart doing a huge million plus square foot campus in mass timber. Now you're talking about Microsoft building data centers using mass timber and it wasn't very long ago that people were saying that mass timber would never be used in applications like this. So obviously these big companies are putting a huge emphasis on mass timber and I really hope that starts driving more use cases and adoption because, like not too long ago, data centers were talked about as you'd never see this.

Brady:

I think Steve Marshall has a great line. He said you know, when he was getting into mass timber way back in the day and bringing it into North America, people were saying it would never be used for multifamily, would never be used for residential, would never be used for multifamily, would never be used for residential, would never be used for warehouses, would never be used for data centers. Now you're seeing that kind of stuff everywhere. I mean like, look at that rendering. Obviously they've got CLT on their mind and I don't think that these two data centers are going to be the last that we see using mass timber.

Nic:

I think it's clearly the start. Well, these multi, multi-billion dollar companies, they have to look good to the people, they have to look good to the public, and there's no better way to look good than to build sustainably and ethically and know where your trees are coming from, and replant trees once you cut them down and harvest them and have a sustainable forest. I'm just kind of going to. This is literally newsmicrosoftcom. You can go here and get a more in-depth look at this. All right, Microsoft is $1 billion for climate innovation fund. Oh, it looks like that they're putting up and trying to help with. So that I thought that was super cool. That caught my eye, Okay, so I thought this was epic. So California is exploding. Here's a project where there's 151,000 square feet of timber, three buildings on one square block. But what I thought was interesting is this is a very beautiful design and you can just see the glow of the timber and it's beautiful. But what's interesting is anything over time deteriorates. I don't care if it's concrete, steel, whatever your lawn outside, If you don't take care of it, it becomes overgrown or it deteriorates like anything, and so I thought this was really great.

Nic:

Nicholas Sills he's one of the most experienced, smartest guys out there. He's a consultant in the world of mass timber. Great guy had him on the Mass Timber Group Show podcast and he just made this really cool comment. That was significant.

Nic:

It kind of screamed experience and what he said was hey, it's a beautiful building, but just note that a five degree angle back cut on the end of the glulam will do a lot for longevity and soffit members. And so this is just a small observation, that the ends of these glulams have a square angle, 90 degree cut, and if we just chopped it back, 5% a back cut, it will allow the moisture to drastically just not hit it as much and not deteriorate it and just keep the longevity and the beauty of it. So just kind of a simple, kind of you know someone with a lot of experience, just kind of saying hey, this, this would help out a lot and I think a carpenter could easily get up there, and that's the beauty of working with timber, you know, and and make that cut back, and I think you could probably do it without marking the you know the CLT decking that's on top, but you know obviously that you know you're probably splitting hairs up there anyways, I thought that was pretty epic.

Brady:

Yeah, it's like quick tips like that, like it just comes from. I'm not going to put numbers in Nick's resume, but I know that he's done significant amounts of designs, all the way from manufacturing to like end user delivery, like he's been involved in that whole thing and he's done a lot of projects. So having somebody experience like that just peek at what you guys are doing could save. You know, I don't know what the long-term repair slash upkeep would be on that, those glue lambs right now. The long-term repair slash upkeep would be on that, those glue lambs right now. But if Nick says that hey, a 5% quick cut on that could save significant, you know, time, effort and money down the road, like it's, it's worth paying attention to.

Nic:

It is Well, and this even just to cap this off, no pun intended. This sparked off like a another interesting conversation with this Jonathan smart talked about like are they, are there any detailing standards for mass timber? I've seen that woodwork structural details, but these are more engineering details coming from steel detailing and the point of what I'm getting at is like there's a lot of people trying to figure the landscape out and we're leaning on each other and we're working with each other, and a lot of this stuff happens in the comments of LinkedIn. I just I can't recommend enough kind of just getting more involved in LinkedIn. It's where the people come to talk, you know. So, all right, man, what do you got?

Brady:

So this is something that I first took a peek at like a year ago. It was off the back of our first conference, I think, as we're planning for our second. Lots of people had questions around insurance for mass timber, whether that's builder's risk or like end user policies, and so I went out and I just kind of did some digging around and there was like a couple little white papers on woodworks. There's nothing that went into too much depth, but I found something out of the UK actually that they called the mass timber insurance playbook. Obviously it was designed for their market, their economic kind of sphere, but basically went through like best practices, like A to Z scenarios. Here's what you do, why you do it when you do it, who you communicate with in order to make sure that your insurance is the best that could possibly be cost-effective, wise and coverage for mass timber buildings. And so, for those that aren't in the know, mass timber faces kind of a big insurance challenge, because when insurance companies look at how they're going to insure and then price those policies, they look backwards at like a hundred years of data and say, okay, well, this type of building that's this tall, with this type of structural material, here's what it costs to repair. Here's the average when a fire happens. Here's what normally happens. Here's how much of the building goes up. It's a 20% loss, a 30% loss, what have you? And that goes across all different kinds of fire, water, earthquake, all that kind of different stuff. But for mass timber, the types of buildings that we're talking about and the ones that you just shown, we don't have all that back data for them to go off of and get those averages for, and so it's kind of like a new risk that they're looking at. And so insurance companies are very conservative, and so they want to make sure that they're covering their butts and their shareholders rightfully so, because they just don't know how these buildings might perform, because there's not a ton of data to back it up, and so what they do is they price that risk into the policy premium. So generally, mass timber insurance policies can be quite a bit more expensive than you would see in like a concrete and steel building, than you would see in like a concrete and steel building. And so normally what happens is these insurers will price these mass timber buildings as if they're just like stick frame buildings, and we know that stick frame buildings do not perform the same as mass timber buildings in fire or water events, and so stick frame buildings are way more expensive to insure than a concrete and steel building of like equivalent size and scale. And so when we build these things out of mass timber, you're not getting kind of like a fair comparison to the risk that's actually happening, and so that kind of creates a disconnect between insurers and the mass timber building and especially the owners and the builders who are paying these policy premiums and the builders who are paying these policy premiums.

Brady:

So, with that being said, I talked to the folks that put together the UK mass timber insurance playbook and let me just make sure that I cite myself correctly Built by nature put that together over in the UK. And I said, hey, who's working on this for the United States? This is like a year ago. And they said, hey, woodworks has been talking with us about putting this together, and so I've been kind of like following that along as we go.

Brady:

And then at the Colorado Mass Timber Coalition that you just talked about, a gentleman from the Softwood Lumber Board was there, ryan, and there was a mastermind question around this topic, Not surprising Said, hey, what are we going to do to address insurance concerns.

Brady:

And he said, hey, there's a resource coming out in three days or whatever it was, and it dropped. So this is the mass timber insurance playbook and it puts together an entire, basically, plan of action for every different stakeholder you know, from owners to builders, to manufacturers, to architects, engineers, all the sub trades, if you will. And it goes through and it says, hey, here's the big concerns that we're looking at, here are solutions to address those. Here's what you need to keep in mind from like the like I'm building a mass timber building the architect, the engineer, everybody's communicating with their insurance provider to make sure that they're addressing all those concerns that they have. So they don't get that bad apples to oranges comparison. It's way too long to go into in depth, but I highly recommend everybody go to woodworksorg and search for this mass timber insurance playbook and download it and see what I'm talking about.

Nic:

It looks like.

Nic:

Just you know, for example, like in the bottom, you know the T3, minneapolis, and then also like the Michael Green Architecture DLR Group, structurecraft, these types of organizations this is the biggest in the industry, flat out period.

Nic:

And so just having those testimonials or these real-world project test cases, this is like the gold standard. And if anybody doesn't know what Woodworks is, they are the gold standard. They're they're a nonprofit association that has that has been developed to help developers or anybody that is trying to develop commercial mass timber. They'll hold your hand, it's a free service. They have staffed engineers, they're a wealth of information and they're just the go-to source for anything White papers that, like what this insurance is this is probably a thousand, you know different sources test cases to to get in, to get more educated, to bring this to your team or the people that don't know what's going on and to present this to them. You know, on a silver platter of like hey, no, no, no, like we're doing this whole mass timber thing in every major city actively for years now. It's time to step up and kind of understand that there is a change in the choice to build sustainably.

Brady:

Totally, and they host webinars and they've got regional reps everywhere. You can go online and find out who you who is yours. But back to this insurance playbook. So this was authored by Philip Callow and Jim Glockling. Uh, you guys can follow them on LinkedIn like very, very knowledgeable folks.

Brady:

Um, but some of the the key takeaways that I had here, um, back to what I talked about. Like, they don't have the data, the lost data historically, to put together like an apples to apples price comparison on what's going on. Uh, and so in in here they're. In the introduction they say mass timber buildings present a challenging risk profile that often defies common principles and methods of lost estimation, largely because it is not served by a body of actuary, actuarial data. Uh, and so what they did is they put together this kind of step-by-step process of what you're going to look at.

Brady:

And so they say, as with all buildings, the critical challenge posed by mass timber can be grouped into these six basic categories occupancy scale, core and shell, other structural challenges, fire mitigation, structural challenges, fire mitigation and water exposure mitigation. And so in that bucket they go through like an entire checklist of what you should be doing. So for fire, right? So they talk about. If an insurer can be convinced that the protection measures in place will contain damage to a lesser amount, then insurance can be provided more readily at a better pace.

Brady:

And then, when you talk about water specifically like undetected water damage. So this isn't like a pipe breaks and you see it flooding down through the ceiling, although that is an issue when you're talking about mass timber, if there's like a little tiny leak behind the toilet and it goes on for years undetected, like we all know that water and mass timber don't play very well together, and so you can get all kinds of mold and basically increase the cost of repair for that. And so they talk about, you know, installing humidity probes and sensors, especially in those concealed places, routine inspections and maintenance of all the cladding, coating and finishes to make sure that your water isn't. You don't have those water challenges. Who wants to read?

Nic:

insurance stuff. You know what I'm saying. Like this is the driest stuff in the entire world. So, like for the love of God, like you know, thank you for kind of like paying attention. But my point is it doesn't matter what part of the team that you are a part of, and then you're you're listening to this for a reason. You're either an architect, an engineer, a builder, a GC, you know you're, you're in the, you're in the mass timber industry, a developer or an investor, or you're trying to figure out. You're in the construction industry and you're playing a very pivotal role in getting this mass timber to the finish line. And, long story short, everything is in pre-design phase. That's where we win. When all of those teams come together around a table and a blank sheet of paper, or maybe the developer or the money bags, they at least have an idea. But once they come together, that's where the magic happens. But what we're saying is insurance is a critical role. If you can't get insured, you're not building.

Brady:

Especially if you can't get insured at a, at a dollar that matches your pro forma right. It all comes back down to what things cost, and so yeah insurance can be drier than a popcorn fart on that, on that, you know, bringing everybody to the table at the very end of this they have.

Brady:

I'm not going to go through all of these, but basically it's like hey, you're in concept phase, here's the key themes you need to talk about, here's the major risk mitigation actions, and then there's an actual like box right here for insurance actions. Here's what you need to do with your insurance provider and they go through concept, planning, design, manufacturing, construction and then commissioning and closeout and then operations. Right, everybody knows that the building is going to be occupied and operated. And, to cap it all off, they have an example right. Here's exactly what this looks like, and it's pages and pages long. But I encourage everybody to go check this out, regardless of what phase, what role you're in with Mass Timber, because your input is required to get favorable terms for these developers, to get insurance, which means that the building gets off the ground. So, everybody, go to woodworksorg. We'll link it down in the show notes below, but definitely check out this resource. It's going to be huge.

Nic:

Sweet. What else cool do you got?

Brady:

Nothing else super cool, other than the waitlist for the Mass Timber Group Summit 2025 out in Denver is open. So if you go to masstimbergroup you can hop on the wait list. We have speaker calls. If you're interested in exhibiting, you can submit a form that tells us hey, here's how we want to be involved. If you're just intending you want to know what's up, we've got a little sample agenda the taste, the flavor of what we're going to go over, we're going to, we're leveling it up this year, not that we didn't last year, but the video that you shared for your birthday.

Brady:

Happy birthday, by the way.

Nic:

Thank you, what's?

Brady:

that, thank you. What's the big number?

Nic:

Three, nine, oh, that's all I was going to tell people. So I turned 39 and you know, life is so good. Man, my little boy Phoenix, he turned nine months. I got my wife, katie. We just moved from Denver to Missoula, montana, to get closer back to family. That's where all my family is from, my wife's family and my family as well. But what I wanted to say, my birthday wish to everybody is I just posted this Go to the MassTimbergroup and this is the one minute recap video.

Nic:

Go, check it out and just kind of understand. Like it's super epic. But block out your calendars next year for August 20th, 21st and 2022nd. The reason being is because the very first night the opening kickoff party is at the Rocky stadium. Like it's. It can't get any more epic. You're, we're gonna have a two hours before opening pitch is gonna be the networking, opening registration. Get your lanyards and then we're actually gonna stay and they're gonna watch the la dodgers. That's right. A hot dog, get a drink. You get a seat. Like it's gonna be august in denver. Man, like on an l, like watching a baseball game in the stadium.

Brady:

It's with world series champions, by the way. What's that said with champions of the world series?

Nic:

See, I feel like an idiot. They did the Dodgers, oh yeah, oh my God, okay, so that's crazy.

Brady:

What do they call that serendipity where it just happens Like yeah, we picked these dates before the Dodgers one, but now we're going to watch the Dodgers.

Nic:

Sorry if you're a.

Brady:

Rockies fan, but I don't know how good that game is.

Nic:

All right, so go watch this. This is the one we're going to clip it in right now so you can watch this. And then, anyways, if you want updates, we have a newsletter that goes to a thousand Mass Timber AEC professionals two.

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Brady Potts

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Nic Wilson

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