ENVIVA WEBINAR

Enviva Hosts Webinar On Biomass

By Jessica Johnson sustainability must be tracked, and REDII requires man

On May 27, Jennifer scribed that these systems must be designed to account for Jenkins, Vice Presithe legality of harvesting operations; forest regeneration of dent and Chief Susharvested areas; areas designated for nature protection purtainability Officer, Enviva, poses are protected; harvesting considers maintenance of and Roger Ballentine, Presisoil quality and biodiversity; and that harvesting maintains dent, Green Strategies, or improves long-term product capacity of the forest. She hosted a webinar based on a cited the European Commission directive stating that for paper the two published May any country not a party to the Paris Accord, “management 6 called Seeing The Forest: systems are in place at forest sourcing area level to ensure Sustainable Wood Bioenergy that carbon stocks and sinks levels in the forest are mainIn The Southeast U.S. The tained, or strengthened over the long term.” hour and a half long presenJenkins, who has been at the forefront of creating a tation touched on the major tracking system for Enviva’s harvesting contractors called Jennifer Jenkins topics of the paper. The six Track and Trace, explained how the Enviva system meets major themes included the and exceeds the requirements laid out by the European role of biomass in a clean energy portfolio; not all biomass Commission. Harvests must meet strict guidelines, includis good/not all biomass is bad; aggregate national-level ing no non-forest conversions and other industry standard greenhouse gas inventories fully account for biomass/there best management practices. is no “loophole”; the net climate impact of biomass sourced Jenkins addressed the positive economic impact that from private working forests cannot be properly assessed biomass has on local and especially rural economies in without consideration of market economics; focus on single the U.S. with some compelling data positively correlating tree or stand level accounting does not provide an accurate forest harvest and growth; before closing with how stand assessment of net GHG emissions in the near or long term; or single tree accounting cannot provide accurate near or and other attributes that must be part of any evaluation of long term assessments of the net GHG emissions. biomass production from U.S. Southeast forests. The webinar circled back to some high level forest in

Ballentine initially focused on steps needed to achieve dustry remarks—like biomass is not the market driver for mid-century climate goals, which include reducing global a given harvest of timber; that clear-cut has a negative warming by 1.5°C. Citing information from the Internaconnation in the public eye; and proper forest management tional Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA): A tripling of actually yields more trees overall. bioenergy use across economic sectors can help achieve Jenkins ended with the sentiment that the biomass de2050 targets for decarbonization. The pair then began the bate has been emotionalized away from the data. more broad scope descriptions of biomass and what steps Enviva sees necessary in order to have biomass more widely accepted and utilized to help achieve a cooler planet.

Jenkins touched on the basics of a working forest, especially in the Southern U.S. She noted that forest inventory in the U.S. South has increased while harvests remain steady—pellets accounted for just 2.7% of removals in 2017. She was clear to explain that while Enviva supports limiting harvesting use, private landowners dominate the forestland of the U.S. South, and halting harvests would be problematic, and detrimental to local rural economies.

As part of the European Commission’s revised Renewable Energy Di

agement systems at the forest sourcing level. Jenkins derective (REDII), biomass Enviva webinar focused on perceptions and realities of forest biomass

16 Wood Bioenergy / August 2020

August 2020 /

Wood Bioenergy 17