At the Land Title and Survey Authority of British Columbia (LTSA), reducing our environmental impact is part of our Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) commitment. One unexpected example is the wooden dowels previously used to store survey plans.
For more than a decade, LTSA has worked with local organizations to give these dowels a second life. Instead of sending them to landfill or for burning, we’ve focused on practical and creative reuse—an example of circular economy thinking in action.
Community partners have played a key role, including Habitat for Humanity, community garden organizers, and Vancouver-based social enterprise Good Old Wood. Through these partnerships, the dowels have been repurposed into garden structures, racks, hooks, and even artistic wooden sculptures.
As LTSA modernized operations, storing plans on dowels was no longer the best option. Protecting and preserving records is a core responsibility of LTSA, and this is achieved through flattening and storing plans in archival quality enclosures and containers, stored on archival quality, earthquake proof shelving behind fire-proof tambour doors, in accordance with the current standards of care.
Over the next five years LTSA will make a historic investment of over $25 million to accelerate conservation, processing and digitization of analogue records and to create a digital vault to hold digitized copies. Digitized records improve access while reducing the need for physical handling, thereby contributing to preservation. This story is ultimately about collaboration. We thank our community partners for helping turn an operational change into a positive environmental and social outcome—and for proving that even ordinary materials can have an extraordinary second life.
From this:
To this:
