The 2012 Olympics timber supply panel has delivered 600m³ of timber and 21,000m² of wood sheet materials to the London Games site in its first six months and Peter Bonfield, the Olympic Delivery Authority’s leader construction products, described it as a success.
The 16-company panel launched in January after a tendering process. The aim was to ensure that all timber used in Olympics projects was certified legal and sustainable under the guidelines set by the government’s Central Point of Expertise on Timber, and backed with chain of custody certification.
“We wanted a system that was straightforward to police and made timber procurement easy for the Olympics contractors,” said Dr Bonfield.
In the early months some non-supply panel material got through, but this was tracked down and sent back.
“There was a learning period and some orders had been placed prior to the panel launch, but it is now all working and last month we had just one non-panel delivery, which was down to contractor error,” said Dr Bonfield.
To date, the split of PEFC and FSC-certified wood products delivered to the site has been 23%/77% and nine of the 16 companies on the panel have so far supplied material.
“We now expect volumes to build,” said Dr Bonfield. “Wood deliveries have already doubled since April and board deliveries trebled.”
