In an effort to make a dent in Santa Monica’s carbon footprint, the City Council is expected to accept a grant from the mass timber industry to explore shifting its construction policies. The $100,000 grant from the Softwood Lumber Board would fund a program to help “evaluate the potential benefits and challenges of incorporating mass timber in new buildings,” according to the City staff report to the Council. …The initial funding would be awarded to up to five building design teams “to develop mass timber building designs in addition to a community partner to support outreach and implementation.” “Mass timber has the potential for greater reductions in embodied carbon emissions in construction projects than can be achieved from low-carbon concrete,” staff wrote. The transition from concrete construction to mass timber — which is an engineered wood product — would help the City’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions by an additional 26 percent by 2030