BCBusiness

18 | BC B U S I N E SS NOVEM B ER/ D ECEM B ER 2025 Shannon Elmitt T he audience of dedicated urban- ists at Vancouver's Robson Square Theatre was startled earlier this year when the first speaker at a debate about mass timber—the new construction material composed of slats of wood glued together, which B.C. has been promoting vigorously—said it isn't the for-sure climate-change silver bullet that everyone likes to think it is. Adam Rysanek, a UBC professor of envi- ronmental systems who specializes in energy efficiency, poked hard at the assumption that, because everyone thinks of mass timber as just wood—a plant! that comes out of the ground!—it must be natural and environ- mentally friendly and surely better than concrete. But Rysanek kept making the point over the next hour of the Urbanarium debate that those ideas are not fully proven. A study he cited, which aimed to factor in all the uncertainties of carbon emissions in differ- ent types of building materials, found there is not a clear answer yet about the differ- ences between mass timber and concrete. "The resounding conclusion was that the two [sets of results from concrete and mass-timber buildings] overlap so signifi- cantly that you cannot say definitively, with- out ambiguity, that a mass-timber building produces lower carbon than a reinforced concrete building," Rysanek said, pointing out that mass timber isn't just wood. It takes a lot of heavy-duty glue and special metal fasteners to create it, along with coverings to make mass timber less vulnerable to the plagues of building—fire, water, insects. Rysanek's brake-pumping argument is one that hasn't had much airtime in the last decade, as governments of various stripes in B.C.—along with environmental groups, sub-groups of architects and engineers interested in climate-change mitigation, and people in the general public—have become entranced by the idea of more tall buildings made entirely of wood instead of concrete. Now, as the NDP government has pushed aggressively to encourage its use, permitting mass-timber buildings up to 18 storeys in the province, many people who produce or study buildings are taking a closer look at mass-timber construction, asking if it really works for every project, every climate, every design. Even the man who has been B.C.'s prime evangelist when it comes to mass timber (a term he invented), Vancouver architect Michael Green, says no one should automati- cally assume that a piece of mass timber, or a whole building of same, is always the answer. "There are times when wood is not the lowest-carbon solution," he says. "It's not great to use wood for everything. If I can do one part with a smaller steel beam, I'll do that." But Green, who has given TED talks on the subject, has projects going on in Europe and the U.S., including a building for Google in Sunnyvale, California, the archives for the Royal B.C. Museum in Victoria, and a 35-storey tower in Paris, is still a fervent believer in the ultimate benefits of mass timber for the climate, for livable buildings, for quality of life. "Nature always wins. Natural materials are the best way to build for human health, human stress and for the planet's well-being. All species on earth, evolution teaches, are driven to find the lowest-energy solution to thrive and prosper, except for humans. L A N D V A L U E S Mass Arguments Mass timber is being touted as the eco-friendly and sustainable solution in building. But is it really a climate-change silver bullet? — By Frances Bula | L AND VALUES T H E B R I E F BOARD ROOM MEC's new Vancouver flagship makes heavy use of mass timber, the much-hyped construction material B.C. is betting on.

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