Thank you.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and committee members. Thank you for inviting us to present FPInnovations' view on the contribution of the forestry sector and of innovation, as part of your study on clean growth and climate change in Canada.
My name is Stéphane Renou. I am President and Chief Executive Officer of FPInnovations. I am accompanied by my colleague Jean-Pierre Martel, our Vice-President of Strategic Partnerships.
FPInnovations is a non-profit organization that has a unique private-public partnership dedicated to improving the competitiveness, diversification and transformation of the industry in Canada.
This partnership is supported and equally funded by the industry and the provincial and federal governments. We have about 430 employees in Canada from coast to coast, from B.C. to Quebec, covering expertise and technical support in the entire sector value chain—from seed to markets, as we like to say—including forestry operations, transportation, technical manufacturing and bioproduct development.
FPInnovations is playing a key role in accelerating innovation, development and the deployment of solutions to create a real socio-economic impact. That's our mission.
The Canadian forest sector, with its renewable forest, employs directly probably 230,000 Canadians in over 600 forestry-dependent communities across the country.
Canada is the world leader in forest certification, with over 40% of all certified forests. This context makes the Canadian forest sector a prime candidate to build on its current activity and to diversify its products to enhance its role in a vibrant low-carbon economy. Innovation plays a key role in developing low-carbon technology and products that can replace the footprint of higher-carbon alternatives.
I'd like to take a few minutes to illustrate how the forest sector will play a key role in moving Canada towards meeting its GHG targets.
The forest carbon cycle is the basis of the Canadian forestry sector's position as a solution to climate change. In very simple terms, a forest is a well that, through photosynthesis, absorbs carbon dioxide, CO2, from the air and stores it in trees and the soil in the form of carbon. The trees are harvested and regenerated using the principles of sustainable forestry. The trees are taken to mills to be processed into products with a long life cycle, like wooden buildings, or a short life cycle, like bioenergy. All these materials either capture and store carbon or provide a viable solution to replace products made from fossil fuels.
Wood in general can be a substitute for construction materials with a higher carbon footprint, such as steel and concrete. On average, one cubic metre of wood in construction will store one tonne of CO2.
In recent years, FPInnovations has been leading the development of construction materials such as cross-laminated timber, or CLT, and building systems that allow the wood to be used in traditional markets such as single-family and multi-family buildings. Much more importantly, it can be used in new markets such as infrastructure and bridges and in mid-rise and tall wood buildings.
We have two examples on the slide we have here. We have the 18-storey Brock Commons on the UBC campus and the 13-storey Origine building in Quebec City, all made out of wood and CLT.
To support these markets, FPInnovations has produced a number of technical guides and studies, including life-cycle analyses that compare different construction systems. As an industry, we believe that wood, whether it is used alone or in combination with other materials, should be considered and encouraged in many types of construction. Wood is one of those rare materials with a small carbon footprint, meaning that it helps to reduce emissions and to capture carbon.
All materials have a role to play in construction, but if we consider the building standards for security, durability, energy efficiency and overall environmental footprint, wood certainly has an important role to play. The most important thing to remember is that, in construction, wood sequesters carbon and, in the forest, helps to increase carbon reservoirs.
In other words, the forest allows us a complete carbon cycle. Carbon is captured inside the wood and
and the forest is used as a sink for carbon.
If you consider the bioenergy side,
crude oil, in general, is nothing but trees and plants that have decomposed and been compressed over thousands of years under the soil. With today's technology, we can actually go directly from the tree to oil and petrochemical products. That's what we call biorefining. All those scientific advances allow us to basically obtain the same chemicals as we could from oil. We are using that technology today to supply fuels and chemicals that have traditionally come from the petrochemical industry.
That's the path we're on: bioenergy using residual biomass from manufacturing plants, biomass from harvesting areas, and wood waste from construction sites and demolition. We can use all the biomass that is left out there and convert it to fuels.
FPInnovations is currently involved in a major project in La Tuque that involves key government and industrial partners—such as the Finnish company Neste, the largest producer of renewable diesel—in testing technologies to transform residual forest biomass into biodiesel. If we're successful, this technology could be replicated in other regions where we have large access to residuals in the forest. Fuel produced at this facility can be blended into the current fuel supply to reduce the carbon footprint.
We can also break down wood into extremely simple components. If you look at a tree, at the base, a tree is made of two main things. One is cellulose, which is the vegetable cells, and the other is lignin, which is the glue between the cells that form the tree. With regard to cellulose, we can use an enzymatic process to create sugars. Those sugars can be transformed into a series of biochemicals. There's a series of scientific names that I could drop: lactic acid, succinic acid, and a bunch of others. All those chemicals are actually the basis for producing bioplastics. You go directly from the tree, from the cellulose in the tree, from a biochemical, through an enzymatic process to create chemicals that are the precursors to plastic. Past research in bioplastics shows that emissions from these products are reduced by approximately 80% compared to conventional polypropylene plastics. It's a way to create plastic that will generate less emissions.
I talked about the cellulose, and there's also the lignin. Lignin is the binder, the glue, between the cells. That component is a bit more complex. It can be used to develop glues. It can be mixed in asphalt, used in biocomposites or even used in animal feed as a binder for the different components of animal feed. It can be used everywhere. A plant is currently being built in Thunder Bay, Ontario to test this process from chips to biochemicals, and we're currently developing applications for the end-user as well. This is a $21-million project that is supported by the industry, the end-users, and the federal, provincial, regional and municipal governments. We're creating jobs in Thunder Bay in the biotech sector with this project.
At FPInnovations, we are also working to break down wood fibre into cellulose fibre and nanocrystalline cellulose. What is nanocrystalline cellulose? It is just small crystals found in cellulose at nano scale, in the form of certain types of very concentrated sugars. They have fantastic properties. With them, we can create new materials for use in textiles, paints, varnishes and cosmetics. They can be used as dispersants, binding agents, and a series of other functions as a result of their properties at nano scale. Cellulose fibres can also be used in concrete as a reinforcing agent, in biocomposites, and in a whole series of materials.
When we think about it, we can consider using fibres everywhere traditional materials are used. Traditional materials can be replaced by wood fibres. We can even think of using wood fibres in aircraft or automobile parts.
We have received a letter of intent from officials in the Ford company, which is very interested in working with us in using those materials in the automobile industry. So they would prefer solutions that are better for the environment. Those solutions offer the advantage of using light plastic material in automobiles, since wood fibre is much lighter than glass fibre. So there is a inherent advantage. It would be beneficial for the environment and lighter cars would, very simply, translate into savings on fuel.
In summary, the forest sector has the potential to significantly enhance its role in a low-carbon economy by improving competitiveness and diversification. Programs to support accelerated innovation development and deployment in the forest sector are key to success.
Thank you for letting me present today. I'm looking forward to all your questions.