Beetham Tower Scandal
Article published: Monday, August 3rd 2009
The Beetham Tower is the jewel in the crown of Manchester’s glitzy regeneration programme. But the building was constructed using illegal tropical hardwoods, according to an Environment Investigation Agency (EIA) Report.
Vast amounts of energy and resources were used up in the construction boom of recent years. According to the Stockholm Environment Institute, between 15-20 percent of all UK carbon emissions come from the construction of our new buildings.
A compelling testament to the building trade’s raw materials gluttony is Manchester’s pioneering Beetham Tower. Despite the claims of Carillion, the tower’s constructor, to have an “unrivalled” track record in sustainability, it’s decked out with 7,000 square meters of tropical hardwood flooring sourced from an illegal logging hotspot in South East Asia, according to the EIA report.
The timber used was Merbau from the remote Indonesian province of Papua. Beetham’s timber supplier Atkinson and Kirby claimed that the wood was ‘certified’ but no forestry operations in Papua were ‘certified’ in 2006 and 2007 when Beetham Tower was constructed.
Incredible as it may seem there are still no effective laws in place to stop illegal timber being imported into the EU despite years of lobbying by NGOs and calls from successive forestry ministers in Indonesia.
Organisations like the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) have been campaigning to encourage developers to avoid illegal timber by getting companies to sign up to voluntary corporate responsibility agreements such as the WWF Forest Trade Network accreditation scheme (FTN). Carillion were signed up to WWF’s FTN at the time of using thousands of square metres of uncertified Merbau. WWF privately admitted that Carillion fail to check up on their subcontractors timber procurement.
It’s a shocking example of corporate irresponsibility, but unsustainable construction practices are encouraged by British tax laws. If you’re a construction company it seems a no-brainer. Pay out a whacking 17.5 percent VAT for re-furbishing an existing building, or put up new flats and claim an enticing VAT rebate on all your materials?
Most empty properties need lots of repair work before they can be lived in, and the high rate of VAT makes this option unattractive for many property developers. So Manchester’s housing stock lies empty and decaying (48,053 empty homes at the last count) while ‘new builds’ fly up on every street corner.
James Alden
More: Manchester
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