Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank the committee for the opportunity to present my views on secondary supply chain products in the forest sector in Canada.
The forest sector contributes significantly to the social and economic prosperity of Canada. With the recent shifts in market demand, increasing trade barriers, and higher competitive pressure for traditional forest products, there is an urgent need for the sector to revitalize and transform to ensure that it remains an economic engine of Canada in the future. Meanwhile, with the societal movement towards higher sustainability, the Canadian forest sector has a unique opportunity to become a leader in supplying innovative, value-added, and green products from our responsibly managed forest in the new bioeconomy.
Being a scientist and an engineer with more than 20 years of industrial and academic experience in the forest sector as well as in conducting research and development on wood and paper products as well as forest biomaterials and biochemicals, I'm deeply engaged in and passionate about this transformation. My career in the forest sector started when I was a Ph.D. student at the pulp and paper centre in the University of Toronto in 1993 almost 25 years ago. After obtaining my Ph.D. degree in chemical engineering in 1997, I worked as a research scientist for two years at the Pulp and Paper Research Institute of Canada, formerly Paprican, in Pointe-Claire, which is now part of FPInnovations.
I also worked as a research scientist on digital printing media for Xerox Corporation in the United States prior to becoming a faculty member in the faculty of forestry at the University of Toronto in 2001. Additionally, during my sabbatical leave from the university I was a visiting scientist at Innventia in Sweden, one of the largest forest products research institutes in Europe, which is now a division of RISE Bioeconomy. Currently I'm a full professor at the department of chemical engineering and applied chemistry and I hold a distinguished professorship in forest biomaterials engineering and an endowed chair in value-added wood and composite at the University of Toronto. Besides research, I also teach graduate and undergraduate courses on forest products, biomaterials, and biocomposites.
The research program I established focuses on developing value-added biocomposites and functional materials using nanocellulose and wood fibres and on synthesizing biochemicals using lignin and bark with the aim of replacing petroleum-derived products.
In particular, I'm recognized as a leader in developing bark biorefinery technologies. Bark is a low-value residue generated from sawmill and pulp mill operations and is available in large quantities in Canada. Bark contains all major chemicals found in wood, such as cellulose, lignin, and hemicellulose, but bark also contains extractives. Currently bark does not have high-value applications. Mostly it's used as part of low-grade hog fuel burnt for heat recovery.
Bark presents an untapped opportunity for value generation. My research team has developed an extraction process to obtain biocompounds from bark; value-added bark-based adhesives for gluing particleboard, OSB, and plywood; and bark-based polyols and polyurethane foams that can be used in the construction and auto sectors. We have demonstrated at the lab and pilot scale that these bark-based biochemicals perform as well as their petro-derived counterparts do. These biochemical products could potentially provide higher economic return to forest companies by using a low-value residue stream as the raw material while allowing chemical companies to add renewable content to their products. I'm working on moving these technologies out of the university labs to advance further towards commercialization.
As an academic professor, today I would like to talk about the idea of building a vibrant innovation ecosystem that can directly support and accelerate the transformation of the secondary forest products sector. I'd like to talk about building a forest products innovation value chain to facilitate the translation of university research into practice.
One key aspect of a successful innovation ecosystem is the easy flow of ideas, allowing rapid transfer of innovation from university to industry.
Canada is recognized as a leader in forest products research. Universities have generated an abundance of innovative product ideas and technologies. These ideas are the result of publicly funded research activities carried out by faculties and students. However, success in industry uptake of these technologies has been limited. Significant barriers exist for university researchers to commercialize their technologies and products in the forest sector.
Usually, innovations and discoveries at universities are at an early stage and are high-risk ventures with a significant uncertainty for commercialization. Some may only target niche applications. Others may be markets that are unfamiliar to the forest sector. This is particularly challenging, given that the forest sector has traditionally been a capital-intensive and large-commodity-based player.
It becomes even more difficult when the receptor capacity of the forest industry is shrinking. Fewer forest products companies are in operation today, due to a large number of mill closures in recent years. As well, the significant challenge in accessing capital for start-ups in this sector creates major roadblocks in pursuing commercialization.
Another important feature that a fully functional innovation ecosystem has, besides the free flow of ideas and easy access to capital, is its strong innovation capacity. At the universities, we need to train young people with not only sound scientific knowledge about forest product materials but also expose them to entrepreneurial skills so they can be the driving force for innovation and commercialization for the sector.
However, we also need industry to employ more highly trained post-graduates to build up the innovation capacity that was largely lost due to the economic downturn. This would help with the uptake of new ideas and technologies.
An additional important factor that allows for building full innovation capacity is to promote equity and diversity and to empower more women, minorities, and indigenous people to take up senior leadership positions in industry and academia in all areas of the innovation ecosystem.
To conclude, innovation will be the pathway to help the forest sector be a leader in the emerging bioeconomy and stay competitive in the global marketplace. A vibrant innovation ecosystem should allow innovative product ideas, whether large or small, early or late stage, to move easily out of universities to form an innovation pipeline.
I would like to suggest to the committee to recommend the federal government put a mechanism in place to close the gaps in the innovation value chain for the forest products sector in Canada. Government can help provide university researchers with access to investment capital to further incubate and de-risk their ideas to lower the barrier for uptake by the industry.
Specifically, government is recommended to put policies and initiatives in place to, first, foster a healthy blend of small bets, large bets, and start-ups in the forest sector in Canada; second, enhance innovation capacities, both in training of the young leaders of tomorrow in universities and in addressing the lack of innovation capacity in the industry; and third, promote equity and diversity in senior leadership positions in industry and academia to fully energize the workforce.
I hope that with the innovation ecosystem, Canada will become a global bioeconomy powerhouse in forest products innovation and commercialization, with a strong, transformed, and competitive forest products industry, a powerhouse that will provide well-paid jobs and growing and fulfilling careers for young people, much like Silicon Valley did for high-tech innovations in the south, and at the same time contribute strongly to global stability and climate change mitigation.
Finally, I'd like to thank the committee for the invitation to appear as a witness today.