Saint John NB: J.D. Irving, Limited (JDI) has collaborated with the Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Management at the University of New Brunswick to produce a comprehensive first-of-its-kind report on the carbon balance of JDI woodlands and forest products operations.

The two-year study, funded by the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and J.D. Irving, Limited, has found that JDI forests will sink (absorb versus emit) about 92 million tonnes of carbon dioxide over the next 50 years. That's the equivalent of the entire emissions of the Maritime Provinces for one year or 18.4 million cars off the road for one year.

A peer-reviewed article titled, "A Comprehensive Greenhouse Gas Balance for a Forest Company Operating in Northeast North America - R.E. Cameron, C.R. Hennigar, D.A. MacLean, G.W. Adams and T.A. Erdle" was published in the most recent edition of the Journal of Forestry - the most widely circulated scholarly forestry journal in the world.

"This is one of the first studies in Canada to take such a detailed look at a very vertically integrated company across all its forest product activities,” said Dr. Chris Hennigar, at the UNB Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Management.

The study took into account all greenhouse gas emission sources - from the harvesting and trucking of wood from the forest through to the emissions from the manufacturing of forest products.

"We wanted to include everything for this life-cycle accounting of our forest operations," said Greg Adams, Research and Development Manager, JDI Woodlands. "We included how our forests are projected to grow over the next 100 years, as well as all the activity that goes on in the forest like tree planting, harvesting, and transportation. We also measured all energy sources used in JDI forest and forest product activities and we included the carbon storage in all forest products."

By combining all the carbon sinks and carbon emissions associated with JDI's entire woodlands and forest products operations, the forest carbon model indicates a total of 58 million tonnes of carbon dioxide will be sequestered in the next 50 years.

"JDI forest and forest products operations are not emitters of carbon dioxide, but in fact the entire operations will be sinking (absorbing) a million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents, on average, every year over the next 50 years," Adams said.

Beyond the 50-year window, modeling indicates the company will remain a sink or carbon-neutral for many years based on today's forest management, processes, products and energy profiles. An important contributor to this positive environmental result is the company's almost 60-year commitment to tree planting which will cross the 900 million mark this year - a national record in Canada.

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View Greg Adams and Dr. Hennigar explaining the research and results on [YouTube].

Media Contact:
Mary Keith
J.D. Irving, Limited
Phone:  (506) 632-5122
keith.mary@jdirving.com