Enviva, the world’s largest producer of industrial wood pellets, has released its latest "Track & Trace" sourcing data, which marks two years of publicly available reporting of the company’s sourcing material. Enviva’s established Track & Trace data programme validates that the company’s sourcing material comes from sustainable and well managed working forests that are thriving and growing right across the Southeastern United States.
Enviva’s Track & Trace’s proven technology enables the company to provide unmatched transparency about the origin of every truckload of wood the company procures from the forest or sawmill, along with detailed insights into the wood’s unique characteristics.
We are committed to advancing sustainable forestry practices and to ensuring transparent and responsible management of our supply chain.We are delighted that once again, our Track & Trace data serve as a testament to this commitment and that the US Forest Services Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data validate that forest area and inventory continues to increase in the areas where we operate, stated Dr Jennifer Jenkins, Enviva Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer.
The latest dataset shows that Enviva sourced wood from 1 157 working forest harvests in 76 counties and in five Southeastern states over the six-month period ending in December 2017. The forests in the Southeastern United States continue to grow and thrive, with the total amount of forest area in Enviva’s primary supply area has increased by more than 300 000 acres (≈ 121 405 hectares) and forest inventory increasing by more than 150 million tons since 2011.
Other findings from the latest Track and Track data include:
- Approximately 39 percent of Enviva’s wood came from pine and hardwood mixed forests, 38 percent from Southern yellow pine forests and 3 percent from upland hardwood forests.
- The wood sourced by Enviva consists of undersized or “understory” wood that was removed as part of a larger harvest and tops and limbs, brush and “thinnings” that were removed to make additional room for planted pines to grow.
- Approximately 19 percent was sawdust, shavings or residuals from wood product manufacturing.
- Two percent came from working bottomland hardwood forests, also consisting of undersized or “understory” wood, and tops and limbs.
- Less than 1 percent came from arboricultural sources, such as landscaping and urban tree maintenance.
- Wood received from these tracts came from forests that were an average of 37 years old at final harvest.
