A $996,600 grant from California Climate Investments through the Urban and Community Forestry program will help Urban Salvaged and Reclaimed Woods, Inc. (USRW) pilot a shared storefront project. This storefront will allow businesses handling salvaged wood from urban areas to combine resources to better process, market, and sell their products.
A significant number of mature trees are removed annually due to health issues and infrastructure projects such as road construction and development. Most of these trees are transported to a landfill to decompose and release their stored greenhouse gases, resulting in a large loss of what could be construction lumber and craft wood. USRW has been working on keeping these trees out of the waste stream by creating networks, educating consumers and tree care companies, and developing an avenue to give these trees a second life.
With a previous grant, USRW developed a standardization for the urban wood industry chain‑of‑custody for sourcing, transporting, processing, drying, and selling the wood. Having standards informs the consumer while also facilitating the use of good ethical practices by urban wood businesses. As urban wood utilization becomes more interesting to the industry and the public, businesses nationwide have accepted the USRW Standards. However, smaller businesses find themselves needing a storefront location to warehouse or sell their products. By providing this storefront, USRW is helping to optimize the amount of urban wood being used while supporting the success of these small businesses. The storefront will also provide a shared location where consumers can receive information about the wood they are purchasing and feel confident in the product.
Overall, USRW will salvage over 1,000 mature urban trees annually that were felled for reasons other than their wood. Those trees can then be made available for their wood/lumber. The project will also plant and maintain 200 public trees in or near disadvantaged communities in the greater Sacramento and Stockton areas.