All construction has an impact on the environment.
We can minimize the environmental burden associated with construction by choosing building assemblies that minimize energy Use and emissions. The following is an example of the environmental effects of common wood and steel truss systems used in residential construction. Environmental LCA is the preferred method to analyse the environmental effects of building material choices. However, the steel roof truss assembly had a higher ecological resource use index because it required more resources than the wood truss system. This measure has been converted to equivalent CO2 production in kilograms for comparison purposes.