Enviva Appreciates VADEQ’s Commitment to Community Engagement and Looks Forward to Public Hearing in September - Seite 2

• Bioenergy is part of an all-in strategy to reduce carbon emissions and limit dependence on fossil fuels. Biomass energy offers a 74-85% lifecycle reduction of greenhouse gas emissions compared with coal. Power generation using biomass also provides a reliable, clean source of energy that complements the intermittency of wind and solar energy, enabling a stable grid without having to rely on fossil powered backup.
• American forest inventories are increasing every year. Today, in the southeast U.S. private forest owners are growing 40% more wood than they remove every year. Only 2% of the working forests in the Southeastern U.S. are harvested each year, while the remaining 98% continue to grow and store carbon. Working forests thrive when managed sustainably. Our business plays a crucial role in helping ensure the protection and growth of forests. Enviva does not source from forests that will be converted to another land use.
• U.S. Forest Service data shows that both forest area and inventory are increasing in the sourcing regions for Enviva plants that have operated the longest in North Carolina, and in fact, there is a clear upward trend during the period since we started operations.
• The key to keeping forests as forests is strong demand for forest products – including the additional value of being able to sell low-value wood for bioenergy. Additional demand raises the value landowners can get from keeping their land as managed forests. Absent strong demand, landowners have the incentive to convert their land to non-forest use for a higher return. That could mean a farm, a housing development, or a strip mall.
• Enviva provides landowners with a key market for their low-value wood – including “thinning,” limbs, tops, or crooked and knotted trees that would otherwise not get used for lumber or other higher value products. Our business plays a crucial role in helping ensure the protection and growth of forests.
• Enviva is certified to the stringent standards of the world’s foremost forestry organizations, such as the Sustainable Biomass Partnership (SBP), Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI). These independent forest certification programs provide a consistent, verifiable and transparent framework for evaluating the sustainability of a company’s operations, from forest to product. We believe that landowner certification of forestland is a good thing, and so we pay more for fiber from certified forests. We engage in ongoing landowner outreach and education, and we make direct investments to support certifications of forestlands. As we continue working to increase the total percentage of lands certified, we also ensure that non-certified fiber comes from responsible sources.
• Enviva has also developed “Track & Trace,” a leading-edge sustainable sourcing program, which provides transparent, publicly available data about Enviva’s sourcing. Track & Trace allows us to specifically identify the source of our fiber to its origin in the forest or sawmill and to further monitor and audit our procurement activities. As part of this program, we pay particular attention to land use change, use and effectiveness of Best Management Practices, wetlands, biodiversity, and certification status.

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