West Fraser has invested in upgrading our operations with technology that improves the air quality coming from our operations. It also significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

In 2016, West Fraser signed on to the “30 by 30” Climate Change Challenge. We are pledging to an industry-wide effort to help Canada move to a low-carbon economy by removing 30 megatonnes (MT) of CO2 per year by 2030 — more than 13% of the Canadian government’s emissions target.

Our achievements are a result of focused efforts to upgrade to more energy-efficient technologies and better utilization of resources like heat, steam, and other energy created during the manufacturing process. The energy is re-routed for use in other areas of the production process and dramatically reduces the overall energy consumption of our operations. The Company is also using more wood residuals such as sawdust, bark, and other by-products of production (called "biomass") to produce energy and is building a significant portfolio of these bio-energy projects.

For some time, our U.S. operations have used biomass energy for the lumber drying process. As a result, our U.S. mills are relatively low emitters of greenhouse gases. However, we’re fine-tuning these energy systems. We’re exploring new investments to gain kiln energy efficiencies to reduce GHG's further.

In our pulp and panel operations, the Company monitors all plant emissions carefully. Our operations use technologies to ensure the emissions from our sites are well within government regulations. It includes filters, scrubbers, and electrostatic precipitators (ESPs). They remove particulates before releasing air into the atmosphere.