Japan, U.S., and Canada Exchange Views on Timber Construction

The 2026 Building Expert Committee Meeting (BEC: Building Expert Committee Meeting) and Japan-U.S.-Canada JAS Technical Committee (JTC: JAS Technical Committee) were held from September 16 to 18, 2026. This was the first in-person meeting in Japan since 2015.

According to the note, the committees were established under an agreement reached in the 1990 Japan-U.S. Forestry Products Trade Talks. Governments and related organizations from Japan, the United States, and Canada participate, addressing building standards and technical information to promote the use of wood materials and the wider adoption of safe construction methods. The meeting and working groups rotate among the countries and are held every two years. The previous meeting in Japan was held online in 2020.

The venue was the Mita Joint Conference Center. There were about 30 participants in total and about 40 online observers in total. Attendees included government agencies, related organizations, research institutions, universities, and embassies from Japan, the United States, and Canada.

Japan explained its policies on using wood in housing and buildings, promoting off-site timber construction, assessing the life-cycle carbon of buildings, rationalizing building standards to encourage wood use, and the status of revisions to Forestry Products JAS.

The United States described the adoption of mass timber, efforts to address industry and societal challenges related to off-site construction, and regional life-cycle assessments of U.S.-produced timber. Canada introduced government measures to promote timber construction, a prefabricated timber building handbook, and efforts to quantify the carbon content of wood products. On September 18, participants visited a mid- to large-scale timber building in Tokyo.