The current pandemic has brought hidden aspects of modern life into sharp focus, upending so much we took for granted. It turns out that supply chains don’t function on autopilot and we can’t always get what we need — whether it be soap from our local supermarket or wood for our building projects.

With large swaths of the population tethered to their homes, renovations have been surging. In late summer 2020, North American lumber prices hit record highs, driven by rising demand for wood fibre that was already in short supply — a shortfall made worse by temporary mill shutdowns in B.C. due to the COVID-19 virus.

Lumber prices are still at least 50 per cent higher than pre-pandemic levels and are forecast to remain elevated for several years. This is making residential construction more expensive and exacerbating the housing affordability crisis.

Rather than looking to our forests for relief for the fibre shortage, we instead should look to maximize reuse of materials already in circulation. Our forestry industry’s current fibre shortage has its roots in the pine beetle infestations and extreme wildfires that devastated millions of hectares of B.C. and Alberta forests. The resulting timber shortage has forced mill closures over the last two years.

With accelerating climate change, the disruption caused by COVID-19 serves as a taste of greater disruptions to come. Rather than going back to our pre-COVID-19 normal, the prevailing idea among governments and community leaders is to “build back better” to instigate a recovery that is inclusive, sustainable and creates good jobs for Canadians in a green economy.

The fibre shortage is an area where rethinking reveals better, more resilient, ways of doing business. One of the innovations emerging in the green-leader province of B.C. is deconstruction. That means disassembling and reusing valuable wood products, often old-growth timber, that would normally be discarded in the course of building demolition. This wood is often incinerated in waste-to-energy projects, which is better than landfilling but still produces additional avoidable emissions.

Across Canada, about 84 per cent, or four million tonnes of construction waste, ends up in landfills each year. Even in a forward-thinking jurisdiction like Metro Vancouver, less than one per cent of construction and demolition materials are reused. With the deconstruction industry in its infancy, the pandemic recovery is a chance to foster its long-term growth.

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