This year’s annual Steel Framing Industry Association’s General Session was held at the Horseshoe Resort tower. Its Executive Director, Larry Williams, hosted the event. Industry members listened as Williams gave an update on the association as well as the trends of the steel framing industry.

This year’s guest speakers were Jonathan Provo and Nicole Meyer.

This year’s theme was centered around regulations and the green building programs, titled “Green Building or Green Washing? An unvarnished appraisal of wood and steel framing.” Propelled by new regulations, building standards, green procurement programs and incentives, the term “sustainability” is increasingly playing a role in building material and construction design specification decisions. As the definitions of “sustainability” and “green” can be subject to interpretation or vary based on the requirements of the reporting agency, there is an increasing necessity to better understand the key attributes, data and assumptions employed in making product stewardship claims.

This provocative session is built on a landscape assessment study of the alternative approaches to boundary and impact setting by wood and steel construction products. The results provide a simple road map through the tangle of rating systems, unwraps the mysteries of green building jargon, identifies the types of greenwashing that can exist in the construction industry and provides attendees with a truly balanced third-party evaluation of the sustainability credentials of cold-formed steel framing, dimensioned lumber and cross-laminated timber.