The Gainesville Renewable Energy Center announced Tuesday it is the first power plant in the country to receive the Forest Stewardship Council’s chain-of-custody certification, affirming that its procedures for buying waste wood fuels conform to the FSC’s standard.
GREC CEO Jim Gordon said the biomass plant hopes to encourage other such facilities as well as landowners to become certified by the FSC as well. “We’re stepping out first with this very responsible forest management program,” he said. “What it means to the community is we are providing a real economic boost to the forest industry.”
Within the forest products industry, FSC certification is seen as the gold standard for responsible forestry practices, according to a GREC news release. The certification confirms the biomass plant uses stringent procedures allowing it to source its wood, which is used to generate power, with certainty as to where it comes from because it’s able to trace the path of the materials from the forests through the supply chain.
Brian Condon, the wood procurement manager for Bio-Resource Management, GREC’s wood procurement contractor, said they track all the wood that’s brought in to ensure it isn’t coming from inappropriate sites, such as lands with high conservation value.
From Gainesville.com: https://www.gainesville.com/article/20141028/ARTICLES/141029634?tc=ar