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Facing intense international competition, Canada’s forestry sector is looking to clean technology to create new opportunities—by converting wood waste into energy and value-added spinofs such as engineered wood products, bio-materials and bio-chemicals.

Forestry has long been an important contributor to the Canadian economy. Cleantech holds the potential to strengthen the industry even as demand for some of its traditional products sofens. By pursuing opportunities in the bio-economy—many of them enabled by clean technologies—Canada’s forest products sector is changing its own economics and revitalizing the communities that depend on it.

According to Avrim Lazar, President and CEO of the Forest Products Association of Canada, the forestry sector can help Canada become a clean energy superpower. “Te industry has the potential to generate enough energy to power 2.5 million homes annually—one out of every fve across the country,” Lazar says. A cleantech-enabled forestry industry also promises to create jobs. “An integrated mill—one that produces wood, pulp or paper as well as bio-energy and bio-products—provides fve times as many jobs as a single-purpose bio-operation,” Lazar explains.

Biomass to Bio-products

Forestry sector turns waste into revenue

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