The sporting venues and athletes villages of the 21st Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games are one of its most substantial legacies and remain in Vancouver and Whistler long after the visitors have left and the Olympic flame has been extinguished. One part of this legacy is the story these venues tell about British Columbia’s forests and forest products. This report showcases those venues that used and are planning to use wood products in their building construction that come from responsible sources.
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification is the “gold standard” of forest certification -- a mark of environmental and social responsibility in forest management, and what is being called “Good Wood”. It is the only standard recognized by major environmental groups worldwide.
Good Wood Watch members - West Coast Environmental Law, Greenpeace, Wildsight, and Sierra Club BC assessed Olympic venues based on the amount and nature of FSC-certified wood. “Good Wood” Awards were given to the South East False Creek Community Centre and the Whistler High Performance Centre for leadership in using FSC-certified wood. The South East False Creek Olympic Village and the Vancouver Olympic Centre received “Good Wood” honourable mentions as the venues are still under construction to prepare them for post-Games use.
50% or more of wood-based materials and products (by cost) used in the buildings will be FSC-certified. This approach to measuring FSC wood use is also utilized by the Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating system.
During the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games visitors to Vancouver and a global audience were invited to experience and understand more about the extraordinary natural heritage of British Columbia that was the backdrop for the Games. Yet the imagery of billboards and advertisements was silent on the long history of unsustainable clear-cut logging that has scarred vast areas of the province, denuding valleys and mountainsides of their old growth forests, harming salmon habitat and community drinking water and leaving communities caught in the boom and bust cycle of the logging industry.
Green building projects like those showcased in this report are part of the solution; they are a key element of the ever-increasing market for more responsibly produced forest products.