Certification

Sustainable forest management (SFM) is widely accepted to be management that maintains and enhances the long-term health of forest ecosystems for the benefit of all living things while providing environmental, economic, social, and cultural opportunities for current and future generations.

Canada has the largest area of independent third-party certified forests in the world and 40% of the world’s certified forests. There are now 145.7 million hectares certified to the three SFM certification programs used in Canada the Canadian Standards Association (CSA), the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), or the Sustainable Forestry Initiative® (SFI). And 66% of that area is attributable to FPAC members. Canada accounts for more than half of the certifications recognized by the global Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes (PEFC) and a quarter of the FSC certifications worldwide.

Certification provides objective evidence of sustainable forest management planning and practices at the forest level and is designed to assure consumers that the products they purchase are derived from forests that go beyond regulatory compliance and are managed to higher environmental and social standards.

Illegal Logging 

The origin of wood fibre for industrial consumption is increasingly associated with an issue that is a prime concern of the international forest community: illegal logging.  Illegal logging can contribute to serious environmental degradation and undermine the viability of legally harvested and traded forest products. In 2006, FPAC and its members adopted a statement on illegal logging that includes a commitment to purchase and use wood from legal source only.  To support this commitment, FPAC members further committed to trace their fibre supplies back to the forest area of origin by the end of 2008, to assure customers that the wood fibre they use comes from legal sources.  FPAC members are implementing traceability mechanisms, and recent developments in the marketplace have prompted consideration of third-party chain-of-custody for all manufacturing facilities’ wood fibre sources.

Boreal Forest

The boreal forest is a vast belt of coniferous and deciduous trees that stretches across most of the northern hemisphere. Canada is steward of about 30% of the world’s boreal forest (with 50% in Russia and the rest in Alaska and the Scandinavian countries). Seventy percent of Canada’s boreal forest has never been accessed (by the forest industry) or subject to (major) economic development, but it is a valued resource; consequently , boreal conservation is a key benchmark of the forest products industry’s commitment to sustainability, which is why the industry is working with national and international groups to ensure continuing improvement of the management of the boreal forest and its various economic, social, and environmental values, such as wildlife and their habitats.

The Canadian forest products industry, and FPAC members more specifically, recognize an obligation to effectively manage their presence in Canada’s boreal forest. The industry takes its responsibility seriously. It is working with partners in government and the conservation community, as well as other land users, to take concrete steps to protect and manage those portions of the boreal forest that are allocated by governments for forestry activities by using tools such as sustainable forest management and adaptive management, which balance social, economic, and environmental values.

In 2006, FPAC and the Canadian Boreal Initiative (CBI) signed a joint conservation planning agreement—the first of its kind—that commits both organizations to plan for the conservation of cultural and ecological values prior to new forest tenures in unallocated parts of Canada’s boreal forest. In a similar vein, member companies have independently struck innovative partnerships with conservation groups such as Ducks Unlimited Canada and World Wildlife Fund-Canada (WWF-Canada).

A Boreal Stewardship Task Force was established in 2002 to accelerate a range of activities related to improving the state of boreal science and knowledge about boreal sustainability. Since then, with the support of the Canadian Forest Service, FPAC has mapped 20% of all Canadian tenured lands - including 25% the boreal - to determine the nature and extent of areas specially managed for conservation purposes. This information is intended to assist ongoing and future conservation activities. Initial estimates indicate that approximately 40% of the commercial forest is part of a network of formal and informal policy-protected, environmentally sensitive sites, wildlife habitat zones, forested wetlands, riparian areas and other areas not suitable or appropriate for harvesting.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Energy Use

Over the past two decades, FPAC members have demonstrated their commitment to addressing energy and climate change issues by reducing energy intensity, fossil fuel use, and resulting greenhouse gas emissions.

For pulp and paper manufacture, FPAC members reduced their greenhouse gas emissions intensity (emissions per unit of output) by 7% between 2005 and 2007, continuing the trend since 1990; pulp and paper facilities have reduced their absolute (total) greenhouse gas emissions by 57% and their emissions intensity by 61%.

FPAC members continue to decrease their consumption of fossil fuels by substituting renewable energy sources such as waste-based biomass. Between 1990 and 2007, pulp and paper facilities decreased their reliance on fossil fuels to 15% from 30% and increased their use of waste-based biomass (including pulping by-products and wood residuals such as bark) to 58% from 49% of overall energy requirements.

Water Use

Over the past 15 years, dioxins in effluents have been virtually eliminated, and effluents have been rendered non-acutely toxic by the installation of biological effluent treatment systems at mills. Over the same period, oxygen-demanding substances and suspended solids have also been reduced by better than 90% and 70%, respectively, as stated in the 2007 FPAC Sustainability Report.

With these significant gains in improving effluent quality, FPAC members are now focusing their attention on reducing water use and associated energy consumption at pulp and paper mills by investing both in infrastructure and in water-efficient technologies and processes such as mechanical seals and the recycling of cooling water. Water-use intensity at members’ mills dropped 5% between 2005 and 2007, for a total reduction of nearly 20% since 1999.

Product Recycling

Canada is a global leader in waste paper recovery. Sawmill residues and recycled paper now provide 87% of the fibre used to make new paper and paperboard. As a result of more than $2 billion in investment, today close to 60 mills use recovered paper for all or part of their fibre requirements to make printing papers, packaging, tissue papers, and newsprint. More than half the paper consumed in Canada annually is recovered for use in recycling programs.

Believing that no good paper should be sent to landfill, FPAC members support a range of programs that encourage greater recovery of waste paper and in 2003 committed to increase Canada’s paper recovery rate to 55% by 2012. In 2007, 58% of all the paper and paper-based packaging consumed in Canada was recycled, exceeding the targeted recovery rate by 3% five years before the targeted date. This achievement can be attributed to increases in recycling by Canadians, a substantial increase in exports of recovered paper, and a slight decline in overall Canadian paper and paperboard consumption.

Air Emissions

The Canadian forest products industry has made substantial advancement in addressing local air quality over the past decade. Between 1999 and 2007, releases of total particulate matter (PM) per tonne of output decreased by 65%, and the amount of total reduced sulphur (TRS) released per tonne of output decreased by 60%.

A multi-stakeholder Pulp and Paper Air Quality Forum launched by FPAC in 2003 had a mandate to develop a 10-year co-operative agenda for the management of air emissions from pulp and paper mills. The agenda was to consider long-term air quality issues, policy objectives, and requirements of federal and provincial governments, economic and technical plans of the industry, and concerns of communities. The forum consisted of representatives from federal and provincial governments, environmental groups, aboriginal communities, and industry, and its work provided a solid foundation for the development of consensus-based targets and timelines as part of the federal government’s Clean Air Regulatory Agenda released in April 2007.

FPAC member companies worked with Environment Canada to develop a wood products combustion survey and promoted the collection of 2006 data throughout the wood products industry in 2008. Environment Canada is still collecting and assessing the data, and the results will be reported in the 2011 FPAC sustainability report, extending environmental reporting beyond the pulp and paper segment of the industry to include the wood products segment.