Mass Timber For The Masses: How Sterling Mainstreamed CLT

Mass Timber is growing fast—expanding from a handful of commercial wood buildings in the U.S. just over a decade ago to more than 2,000 today, with 24,000 projected by 2034. Once considered niche, mass timber is moving mainstream—competing on price, speed, and domestic supply chains, not sustainability alone.

Sterling Structural is leading that shift. As the world's largest CLT manufacturer, the company produces one cross-laminated timber panel every 65 seconds, sourcing 100% of its wood from domestic sawmills. Sterling has recently produced its one millionth panel.

This is mass timber for the masses—standardized, modular systems that contractors already understand.

Michaela Harms, Vice President of Mass Timber at Sterling, joins Josh Dorfman to share how mass timber went from alternative to mainstream in a decade. She discusses how Sterling supplied 1,100 prefabricated CLT panels for Amazon’s new facility in Elkhart, Indiana, and why the industry is scaling by competing directly on price, speed, and practicality—with the carbon and forestry benefits included.

Show Notes

Guest: Michaela Harms, Vice President of Mass Timber

Company: Sterling Solutions

For more low-carbon innovations now scaling—and the playbooks driving their market adoption—subscribe to the podcast plus our:

* Weekly Newsletter

* Climate Adoption Playbook

* Supercool on Instagram

* Supercool on LinkedIn