Go Green with OLT

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Go Green With OLT

There are many ways you can help do your part for the environment.

Choosing to purchase backyard garden products that are produced sustainably with ethically sourced labor and lumber is an easy way to ensure the protection of people and the planet alike.

The Western Red Cedar we source is independently certified and is harvested legally and sustainably from managed forests all over British Columbia.

Western Red Cedar is a truly sustainable building material. It has the lowest environmental impact compared to other commonly used building materials, such as brick and fiber cement, vinyl, and steel/ aluminum.

Choosing any product from Outdoor Living Today is not only a great design choice for your garden that will improve your outdoor living space, but it will also make you part of the solution in leaving behind a better planet for future generations to come.

PEFC/26-31-29 Certification

In 2010 Outdoor Living Today and our partners have been rewarded PEFC chain of custody certification. PEFC is internationally recognized and acknowledged certifications committing their bearer to the following:

Outdoor Living Today is committed to the Chain of Custody (CoC) and to ensuring the integrity and validity of the CoC and to the organization’s certified product.

When our customer buy PEFC certified products from us, they are assured that the materials are from sustainable managed forests.

~ From Our Founder

Under the CoC, OLT commits to process wood fiber only from sources that are not controversial. Furthermore we will make our best efforts to avoid trading and sourcing wood fiber originating from the following categories:

Illegally harvested wood
Wood harvested in forests where high conservation values are threatened by management activities
Wood from forests in which genetically modified trees are planted

Wood harvested in violation of traditional or civil rights
Wood harvested in forests being converted to plantations or non-forest use
Will not process wood fiber from any international trade in endangered species of wild Fauna and Flora.

Reducing Our Carbon Footprint

Furthermore we are concerned with waste and ever growing landfills. Outdoor Living Today’s designers have therefore designed our Garden Sheds, Storage Sheds, Pergolas and Gazebos to use the wood fiber efficiently and without waste.

OLT buys the lumber from the mills which are considered too short, too thick or too thin for their regular customer’s use.

One great example are our cedar joists and floor runners use in our sheds. Since those parts are not visible under the floor, we use structurally sound but visibly not pretty pieces. They may have some marks or scratches on them and could be rough-cut, but are absolutely functional in all our sheds. Those pieces would end up in the landfill and newly harvested wood would have to be used.

Typically, an efficient lumber mill extracts approximately 50% of the log into saleable lumber. Because OLT utilizes so many smaller pieces of lumber for our 50 backyard kits that would otherwise be chipped and turned into waste, we extract an additional 20% from each log

As you can see from the math, extracting more from each log potentially means less trees are used. Reducing your environmental footprint by 20% is massive and one we believe our customers really value,” ~ From Our Founder

Western Red Cedar offers unique, natural performance characteristics and exceptional beauty that bring warmth, character and longevity to the interior and exterior of residential and commercial projects around the world.

Whether you choose knotty or clear grades, Western Red Cedar offers virtually unlimited versatility and design flexibility in terms of size and profile.