The City of Ann Arbor, Michigan and Urban Ashes® launch the first Circular UrbanWood Triconomy™, a Municipal Wood Recycling Model

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Nov. 18, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Urban Ashes®, a pioneer in the urban wood industry, has partnered with the City of Ann Arbor, Michigan, to launch their first Circular UrbanWood Triconomy™ (CUT Model™), an innovative municipal wood recycling program built upon decades of expertise. This collaboration prioritizes local economies, reduces municipal costs and landfill waste, increases carbon sequestration, develops local wood resources, and creates career and business opportunities for justice-impacted youth and formerly incarcerated individuals.

The CUT Model is a pioneering framework based on the triple bottom line—People, Planet, and Profit—that promotes environmental sustainability, social equity, and economic diversity by maximizing the potential of urban wood. Urban wood includes trees removed not for their wood value but due to age, disease, or storm damage, existing across urban, suburban, and rural areas.

Each year, the U.S. misses the opportunity to recover an estimated 46 million metric tons of potential urban lumber. This lost wood resource, primarily chipped, burned, or landfilled, could instead produce over 7 billion board feet of quality urban lumber. That equals the volume of about 16 Empire State Buildings. 

This also results in lost carbon sequestration of an estimated 5.6 million tons of carbon and releases around 20.55 million tons of CO2e emissions. Capturing just 40% of this capacity could be equivalent to planting approximately 136 million trees and growing them for ten years in terms of carbon and CO2e impact. The CUT Model offers an alternative by converting these trees into quality urban wood and durable wood products, sustaining carbon sequestration and increasing their value.

For comparison, the world's largest direct air capture plant, Stratos, currently under construction in Texas with a $1 billion+ investment, is projected to remove only 550,000 tons of CO2 per year—under 7% of the urban wood industry's potential at only 40% !

Urban Ashes is driving transformative change with its CUT Model, already in engagement across over 25 cities in the U.S. Through its partnership with Ann Arbor, Urban Ashes is setting a powerful precedent for municipal wood recycling programs staged to expand and benefit communities nationwide.

Ann Arbor is expected to sequester between an estimated 20 and 40 metric tons of carbon through this initiative, preventing the release of 73 to 147 metric tons of CO2e. This reduction equates to the impact of planting and growing about 1,213 to 2,425 saplings over a decade, more than doubling the effect of Ann Arbor's annual planting of 1,000 saplings.

About Urban Ashes: Urban Ashes leverages decades of urban wood industry expertise to build public-private partnerships with communities nationwide, offering sustainable solutions that transform their fallen trees—typically slated for chipping, firewood, or landfills—into high-quality local urban wood products with local economic, environmental, and social benefits.

Through the CUT Model, Urban Ashes creates scalable systems while supporting small local mills, local manufacturers, and communities foundational to the urban wood industry. Utilizing advanced tracking software and established industry standards, they maximize urban wood utilization, contribute to carbon sequestration, reduce CO2e emissions, and establish new markets, local career paths, local jobs, and local business opportunities for our formerly incarcerated individuals and justice-impacted youth.

Contact: Paul Hickman
Founder & CEO, Urban Ashes
734-546-9657
[email protected]

SOURCE Urban Ashes