Good Wood Awards
Photo: andreyutzu, sxc.hu
April 2010
On March 31, Sierra Club BC and our partners in the Good Wood Watch presented two 2010 Olympic venues with a Good Wood award in recognition of their contribution to reducing pressure on forest ecosystems by using FSC-certified timber.
The award recipients are the High Performance Centre at Whistler Athletes’ Centre and South-East False Creek Community Centre at Vancouver Olympic Village. South-East False Creek Olympic Village (athletes’ village) and the Vancouver Olympic Centre (Nat Bailey/Hillcrest Curling Venue) received honourable mention.
“Using FSC-certified wood is a great way to show the world that opportunities exist to manage our beautiful forests sustainably,” says Canadian Olympic halfpipe snowboarder Justin Lamoreux, who supports the Good Wood initiative. “My boards are built with FSC-certified cores, and I commend the Olympic venues that have shown leadership by using FSC-certified wood.”
View pictures of the award winning venues.
To earn an award, venues had to use more than 50 per cent FSC-certified wood in their construction. The gold standard of forest certification, and the only one endorsed by major environmental organizations worldwide, FSC certification is a mark of environmental and social responsibility in forest management.
“FSC-certified wood is harvested in a way that sustains healthy forests, benefits workers and adjacent communities and respects the rights of First Nations,” says George Heyman, executive director of Sierra Club BC.
Read the story in the Province.
The environmental groups comprising Good Wood Watch — West Coast Environmental Law, Greenpeace, Wildsight and Sierra Club BC — also released a report, Good Wood Awards for Leadership in Good Wood Use for 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Venues.
In the report, Good Wood Watch also recognized 10 venues with tree stumps for failing to do their part to preserve our forests, including the Main Media Centre at the Vancouver Convention Centre, which had originally planned to use FSC-certified wood, but didn’t follow through.
So who got the stumps? Find out.
Canadian FSC wood supply has increased dramatically in recent years, and Canada has the most FSC-certified forest area of any country in the world, with 35.2 million hectares certified.
