The French timber industry looks set to succeed in its ambition to make the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics a showcase for wood-based building. This, it believes, could help give the sector new impetus in France, further aided by a multi-certification scheme timber traceability tool developed specially for the Games.
To drive use of timber at the Olympics, the industry launched the France Bois 2024 (FB2024) alliance in 2018. Lead partners behind it are forestry and timber sector body France Bois Forêt and furniture and woodworking industries confederation Codifab, but it also involves a range of other organisations to plug the industry nationwide into the Games.
Working closely with Olympics construction delivery authority Solideo, they have already helped secure an agreement for 50% of buildings in the Olympic village to be wood-based.
Timber will also be a prime structural component of the 10,000m2 Grand Palais Éphémère judo and wrestling arena, which is being designed to be dismantled and repurposed after the Games, and the Olympic aquatics centre.
“We can’t yet make a precise assessment of the quantity of timber involved, but the Olympic village should mobilise 20,000 to 40,000m3 and for all Games sites the requirement could be 100,000m3,” FB2024 president Georges-Henri Florentin told Le Moniteur magazine. “Solideo has set a target for 30% of this to be French, but the industry hopes to increase that to 50%.”
The Games are also driving innovation in timber engineering and building, he added. This includes development of more environmentally benign resins for lamination and “standard specifications for high rise wood construction systems”. Olympic projects are also helping enhance capabilities in demountable building.
“Great efforts are also needed to train construction workers more accustomed to concrete building, in new practices suited to wood,” said Mr Florentin. “FB2024 has launched an industry club to support training for the range of building personnel, from carpenters and façade workers to plumbers and electricians.”
All timber used for the Games must be certified sustainable under the FSC, PEFC or French Wood (Bois de France) schemes. It is to simplify the traceability audit process of working with these three labels over such a big project that FB2024 has developed its new France Bois Traceability tool in association with certification body FCBA.
“All three certification schemes have accepted tracking of traceability with the tool, which is based on block chain,” said Mr Florentin. “If we had three systems to work with, the process would be complicated, expensive, and could penalise wood products compared to other materials. The idea was therefore to …. set up a tool with a single traceability audit process to reduce costs and shorten deadlines. For companies tendering to supply timber lots to Games construction sites, it will result in a three-fold reduction in their audit bill.”
The tool, say its developers, will continue to have value post-Olympics.
One controversy is the current exclusion from Games projects of wood of “exotic and non-EU boreal origin”, other than for fire safety reasons, in which case it has to be certified.
The International Tropical Timber Technical Association (ATIBT) and timber importers association Le Commerce du Bois have written a letter to Solideo protesting that this unjustifiably bars use of certified tropical timber. They maintain it tarnishes the reputation of environmentally sound tropical material.
This issue aside, Mr Florentin says the Games will leave a legacy in French timber building, giving it a stepping off point to develop further.
“Currently wood-based building accounts for just 10% of construction in France, compared to levels around 20% in other northern European countries,” he said. “With at least 50% of buildings in the athletes’ village in wood, and other Games structures too, it will be a formidable showcase for the know-how of our timber construction industry. It is improving co-ordination in the sector and will encourage more general uptake of wood building, helping give it critical mass. In turn this will contribute to implementation of the national low carbon strategy and boost the value of French forest capital.”
