The State of California has announced the formation of the California Mass Timber Coalition, a public-private partnership that brings together government, industry, researchers, and community organizations to expand the state’s mass timber industry. The coalition aims to advance climate-smart construction, support forest health and wildfire mitigation, and develop policies that encourage manufacturing and market growth. California joins a growing number of states—including Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Michigan, Georgia, and New York—that have launched similar initiatives to advance mass timber construction, strengthen domestic manufacturing, and support low-carbon building practices.
In Massachusetts, MassCEC has launched MASS Timber Assembly, a new program designed to advance mass timber construction, strengthen local industry expertise, and expand the market for mass timber buildings. The 12-month cohort program provides selected project teams with $40,000 in grant funding, as well as technical assistance from industry experts, a detailed embodied carbon analysis, and guidance on construction management, cost, and scheduling considerations. Applications are open through August 28, 2026.
The American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) has published a new quick guide: Using Steel Construction Product GWP Impact Values in WBLCA. Intended for developers of WBLCA tools, the guide provides updated global warming potential (GWP) values for common U.S. steel construction products. The document aims to improve consistency and accuracy across WBLCA tools by aligning them with current industry-average environmental product declarations (EPDs).
In related WBLCA software news, the building performance data platform, C.Scale, has acquired the Tally life cycle assessment (LCA) tool from Building Transparency, the nonprofit behind the Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3). By connecting C.Scale’s early-stage carbon modeling with Tally’s BIM-integrated analysis and EC3’s product-level data, C.Scale promises to provide users with better tracking of embodied carbon from concept through construction while enabling design teams to maintain workflow continuity throughout the project. You can read more about the acquisition and next steps here.
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