Sustainable lumber? That wood be cool

Yes, the pun was mediocre at best, but the concept is awesome — stick with us.

Startup Cambium is chipping away at recycling the 36m trees that fall each year due to development, natural disasters, disease, or decay, per CNBC.

Traditionally, those fallen trees are either burned, sent to a landfill, or turned into mulch — a process that produces carbon emissions and wastes energy.

To fix the system — and capitalize on the global demand for wood, which could grow 54% between 2010 and 2050 — Cambium is turning to tech:

• When a tree falls, it might not make a sound, but it does have a shot at a new life with Cambium: The startup works with arborists and millers to rescue and upcycle the wood.
• The wood is taken to the company’s sawmills, where it is processed into lumber suitable for construction, furniture manufacturing, interior design, and more. 
• Every piece of the company’s Carbon Smart Wood has a barcode that can be scanned to identify the species, when it was milled, and what grade it is. 

Once wood is in the system, it can be purchased and delivered across the US and parts of Canada.

What wood be

Part of Cambium’s appeal — and there’s lots: the startup has raised $28.5m in funding — is that it can serve customers on both sides of the lumber industry, working with buyers and sellers.

• Cambium works with hundreds of independent entities, from tree care companies and sawmills to trucking companies, but few have digitized their business.

• The startup hopes to change that, selling its software to companies in the wood industry to more easily move, track, sell, and recycle their products.

So far, the startup claims its Carbon Smart Wood has diverted 3.4m board feet from the waste stream.

But can it answer the biggest question of all: When a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound?