By: Nathan Ma

The 2010 Winter Olympics will be the third Olympics hosted by Canada, taking place in Vancouver where both the Olympic and Paralympic Games will be organized by the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC). Following the global trend of eco-friendly design, the city of Vancouver is determined to integrate a number of green initiatives, designs and facilities into the entire construction project of Olympic Village.

By integrating these green designs into the construction of Olympic village, we are setting a green model for the coming Olympic games. VANOC spokesperson Renee Smith-Valade deemed this design as “an innovation in eco-friendly construction”.

Regardless of the money that can be saved by equipment like solar panels in the long run, the construction costs, especially during this economic crisis, have some asking questions. Moreover, the budget of this huge construction project has an approximate overrun of 125 million, hitting almost one billion in total – reportedly due to unforeseen increases to the cost of materials and transportation. The constructor, Millennium Development, went to the banks to manage these overruns without success, given various factors including high lending costs of up to 9%. As a result, the construction was halted last year as the lender was reluctant to loan another 125 million in such an unstable economic environment. In order to break the deadlock, the City of Vancouver stepped in to secure the projects and support Millennium Development. Nevertheless, each of the citizens in Vancouver is obliged to about $2000 debt because of the money loaned to the developer of this project.

Some critics said that the construction would not have seen as high of an overrun if the eco-friendly facilities and initiatives were not in the plan. Others argued that the construction cost overrun was simply because of the inflationary costs relating to building materials and labour.      

Which argument is right, the fact is that the construction costs would have been lower without the green designs or inflation the result is the same: we the tax payers are an extra million dollars in debt. All of a sudden, we all contemplate this question: is it the right time to go green? 

Apparently, only the public has the ability to give an answer to this question as we can carry out a public vote and decide if the majority of us are willing to put extra investment in this project. Many citizens in Vancouver are furious after realizing that they are now responsible for this debt, while others insist on the importance of green construction and that we consider the environment, not just the bottom line.   

While many people claim to be eco-friendly and are working to reduce their footprint this matter begs the question: are we willing to invest in our environment?  

Simply sorting and recycling paper and cans won’t be sufficient to save the planet. If we are genuinely concerned about our environment, we must embrace green designs, and initiatives as the norm. We understand that there is an economic crisis happening in every single country. How about our environmental crisis? Investing in our planet’s future needs to start today.

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