The poplar is now applied mostly for low quality products with a short life span. Six options for a higher quality application, in this case a polar purlin, are presented and semi quantatively evaluated with regard to their environmental aspects. The options vary from hardly processing the poplar resulting in a roundwood poplar purlin to the intensively processed laminated poplar veneerwood. The least processed options are environmentally most preferable, as the (non renewable) energy input is low, the material efficiency good and the product composition is no barrier to giving the purlin a second life. They require however a more labour intensive forestry and more care in selection and handling than most other options with a more intensive processing of wood. There always will be a fraction of the harvested trees of insufficient quality for the environmentally most preferable options (a roundwood purlin and a rectangular solid wood poplar purlin). In this case the glulam option and the veneerwood option can be environmentally seen interesting. The PLATO-glulam-option can be interesting in situations where dry conditions cannot be guaranteed and is environmentally preferable to the CCA-treated glulam purlin.