The Story of “Our Daily Wood”

By Jim Petersen, Co-founder and Executive Director

The non-profit Evergreen Foundation

Sometime in the late 1980s – I no longer remember when – I saw a fascinating lecture in Portland, Oregon delivered by a man I’d never met before, but who would soon become a good friend and a frequent Evergreen Magazine contributor. His name was W.R. J. “Wink” Sutton, and he was a PhD forest economist from New Zealand. 

Unlike most PhD’s who pursue “the dreary science” [that would be economics] Sutton had a delightful, dare I say infectious, sense of humor. He was in Portland to discuss global natural resource consumption. And what a discussion it was. I’ve rarely laughed as hard as I did watching Sutton bring consumption to life in a way that even I could understand. 

You would expect an economist of such renown to come armed with the customary supply of charts and graphs that could only be understood by other PhD economists. Not Wink. He stepped to the podium armed only with a small wicker picnic basket. Inside were small plastic bags filled with things like wood shavings, nails, bauxite, flour and potatoes. Yup, potatoes, and rice too as I recall. 

Each bag held the exact amount consumed in a 24 hour period by a single human being. So, to know how much the world’s economies were consuming, all you had to do was multiple a few ounces – or pounds - of this or that by total world population. It was about 5 billion in the late 1980s. Now it is approaching 7 billion.

I confess I was mesmerized by Sutton’s presentation. It was hilarious, but very sobering for anyone wanting to know just how much of everything we humans consume in a year. When Wink was finished, I rushed the podium in hopes that I could speak with him for a few minutes. In hindsight, I need not have been in such a hurry. He was delighted by my interest in his lecture and quite willing to visit with me. 

As we talked an idea came to me in the form of a question. “Could it be possible to calculate per capita wood consumption in a more meaningful way that a bag of wood shavings, perhaps as a wood block?”

“Do you mean like a slice of pie?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye.

“That would be perfect,” I said.

“I can do it for you,” he replied.

Within a week I had my calculation for the dimensions of a block of wood that represented the average amount of wood consumed every 24 hours by every person on earth. Thus was born, “Our Daily Wood,” a humble wood block so named in biblical reference to “Our Daily Bread.”

Manufacturing the blocks was no small chore. First I had to find someone willing to make them. Russ McKinley, timberlands manager for Boise Cascade in southern Oregon, volunteered to rough out the blocks and give them their first sanding. Ernie Hinchcliffe, who was our graphic designer at Evergreen Magazine, figured out how to silk-screen our “Daily Wood” message on the blocks, then hand sanded and lacquered ever block.

I have no idea how many blocks we’ve manufactured since the late 1980s, but it surely runs into the thousands. In the late 1990s, a lumber broker in Rome ordered more than 1,000 of them as Christmas gifts for his European customers. Getting our message accurately translated into Italian was no small chore, but we did it.

Although we no longer manufacture the blocks [they cost almost $35 apiece to manufacture] we still get notes from people who see them hanging on walls or sitting on desks and want a copy of the message. That’s why it’s on our website – so you can make your own copy and e-mail it to friends around the world. 

Perhaps we’ll make more blocks again someday, after the economy improves. We’d also like to publish our magazine again. At one time we were sending it free to more than 100,000 readers across these United States.

Meanwhile, we hope you enjoy our website – and learn something from it. Also, be sure to Google “Wink Sutton.” His story is amazing.