American Softwood has been exported from the United States for over 400 years and today America is recognised worldwide as a sustainable source of top-quality timber.
American Softwoods (AMSO) is a promotional partnership formed by three major US softwood trade associations: the Southern Forest Products Association, the Softwood Export Council and the APA, the Engineered Wood Association.
Overview
American Softwoods (AMSO) is the promotional board for the American Softwood industry with a broad membership representing trade associations, exporters and a cross section of the American Softwood industry.
The global popularity of American Softwood is based on:
- Standardization of sizes and stress ratings
- Quality control through the enforcement of a single unified grading system
- Strength and durability
- Suitability for preservative and fire-retardant treatments
- Construction standardization
AMSO runs a worldwide programme promoting American Softwoods to buyers around the world.
American Softwood’s Mission
In addition to offering exception service to members to facilitate their ambitions for global exports, AMSO’s ambition is to educate buyers, builders, architects, designers and specifiers that using wood is the low carbon choice which can help tackle climate change.
The messaging AMSO seeks to communicate includes:
- Wood is the world’s only naturally renewable mainstream building material
- It provides third party verification of sustainability through international forest certification programmes
- It is reusable recyclable, can be used as biomass fuel and is biodegradable
- It has better insulation properties than other building materials
- Trees require less energy to harvest and convert to finished products
- Growing trees remove CO2 from the atmosphere and give off life-sustaining oxygen
- Wood products store CO2 keeping it out of the atmosphere
The Softwood Sector
America’s forests currently produce over 80 million cubic metres of sawn timber a year, making them the largest producers in the world. About 10 per cent of this timber is exported overseas. Modern forest management ensures not only that felled trees are replaced, but that every year more wood is grown in US forests than is harvested. As a result, the US has more trees today than 70 years ago. 1.6 billion seedlings are planted in the US every year, the equivalent of 4.4 million trees every single day of the year.
No other material can match the unique benefits of wood and as carbon reduction becomes more pressing, the compelling environmental benefits of using wood help to make it todays material of choice.
To find out more about AMSO, visit https://americansoftwoods.com/
