In the forest industry, we cut down the trees and try to use the whole of the tree. The history of innovation in the forest sector has been—again my colleagues on the video screen could give you much more detail than I—to move from 60%, 70%, 80% to now over 90%. We're now at over 95% usage of the tree. We use the whole of the tree, whether it is in making bioenergy or these new chemicals and new products. Using the resource as efficiently and effectively as we can is the mantra that we have in our industry.
A lot of our equipment is old. A lot of our technology has been dependent on old products or products that are no longer popular. It's no secret that newsprint is not as popular as it was, so we need to invest in upgrading the equipment we have and in new equipment.
There was one specific program with which the government did help the industry, when the United States brought in the black liquor subsidy, as some of you may recall. My counterpart in the United States said it didn't believe in subsidies, but the black liquor benefit seemed to be quite good for my American friends. The federal government brought forward something called PPGTP, pulp and paper green transformation program, and our companies were able to upgrade and invest in equipment to reduce the environmental particulate matter, reduce smells, and increase the use of energy. It was a good investment in some of our base equipment.
Then the IFIT program, investments in forest industry transformation, is for new first-of technologies.
We need to do more of both. The foundation of our industry is still the mills and the forest harvesting practices. We need to continue to invest in that. My colleagues at FPInnovations are continuing to look at new innovations to be globally competitive and keep costs down so that we can hire the workers to make those products. That is the beginning of a conversation that's happening in every board room of every one of our companies right now. They're making those business decisions, and sometimes first-of investments are scary. Sometimes they don't work, so any help to spread the risk or mitigate the risk is always appreciated.