Season 1
EPISODE 5
In this episode, Brit and Bethany sit down with Lynn Morgan, Director of Community Engagement at Sustainable Northwest Wood, to explore the emotional, ecological, and cultural power of choosing materials with lineage. Founded in 2008 with a mission to sell only responsibly sourced, locally harvested wood, Sustainable Northwest Wood has shaped a new model for accountability in the built environment: one rooted in transparency, stewardship, and community connection.
“ Our forests are speaking. The question is whether we’re listening.”
—Lynn Morgan
Lynn shares the company’s unusual origin story, its steady growth even through economic downturns, and the next chapter: a Seattle distribution center designed to scale only as fast as community desire for regenerative materials grows. The hosts reflect on how compelling this mission feels—how choosing local wood with story and integrity is not just ecological, but profoundly human.
The episode also travels into the personal: books that have shaped their thinking, the cultural grief of forest loss, pests like the emerald ash borer and pine beetle, and the emotional weight of watching beloved landscapes change. Lynn opens up about her Appalachian upbringing in a family that practiced deep stewardship, using what was available, wasting nothing, and caring for land over generations. That ethic continues to guide her work today.
Together, Lynn, Brit, and Bethany explore themes of gratitude, “enoughness,” climate urgency, and the healing that comes from reconnecting materials to place. Lynn invites the hosts on a selective-harvest forest tour—a living example of regenerative forestry where a working forest still feels like a forest. It’s a conversation about story, community, and the future we can still choose to build.
Lynn Morgan is the Director of Community Engagement at Sustainable Northwest Wood, a Portland-based ethical lumber provider dedicated to local, responsibly harvested, and transparently sourced wood products. With roots in Appalachian land stewardship and decades of experience working with forest-based communities, Lynn brings a rare blend of ecological knowledge, cultural insight, and emotional intelligence to the conversation around regenerative materials. She is known for her leadership in advancing regional forestry networks and championing materials with lineage, story, and integrity.
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