FoE's forest campaign collective visited the Green Building Council event "Pillars of Change" today. 

We were raising awareness about their endorsement of Australian Forestry Standard certification which certifies timber from environmentally destructive logging operations.

The Green Building Council is awarding 'green star' ratings to buildings made with timber sourced from ash forests in Victoria's Central Highlands. This forest ecosystem is listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation and Nature (IUCN).

The Central Highlands ash forests are home to threatened wildlife, are the most carbon rich forests on earth and some lie within Melbourne's water catchments.

Timber from logging these forests cannot be considered a 'green' product, but the Green Building Council has caved into logging industry pressure and weakened their standards. 

The FoE collective distributed information about the council endorsement of Australian Forestry Standard and called on the GBC to reinstate its old 'sustainable timber' credit, where green star points for wood were only available to sources consisting of recycled and/or Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified timber. 

The logging industry needs to change and the GBC must be part of the solution not the problem.