Forest Products Association of Canada launches Bio-pathways Partnership Network

The Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC) is pleased to announce the launch of a new Bio-pathways Partnership Network aimed at exploring new business ventures that will help exploit the economic opportunities of the emerging bio-age.

Network participants will come from such sectors as the chemical, energy, pharmaceutical, auto, aerospace, and plastics industries as well as other technology providers that can collaborate with the forest products industry on extracting bio-chemicals, bio-energy and bio-materials from trees.

“This is a welcome development stemming from our recent bio-pathway reports. That study confirmed the social, economic and environmental advantage of integrating these new bio-products in existing mill operations. It also pointed to a myriad of market opportunities for companies willing to invest in new green innovations based on wood fibre,” says the President and CEO of FPAC, Avrim Lazar. “We know that business as usual will not work. Establishing partnerships will be a win-win situation economically that will allow us to more quickly transform the forest products industry.”

An inaugural meeting of the network that took place earlier this month in Toronto will be followed by meetings in British Columbia and Alberta. Members are also working to set up a steering committee and a secretariat to manage the network. The goal is to provide a forum for the development of business to business relationships, to identify and conduct research, to facilitate access to expertise in planning and development of bio-products and to reach out to other potential partners interested in innovation in the forest products industry.

“Wood fibre is one of Canada’s most abundant natural resources and extracting more value from that wood is a real game changer for the Canadian forest products industry. It’s about higher profits, more jobs and furthering our environmental credentials. ” says Lazar. “With this new network, we are inviting other sectors to partner with FPAC members to take advantage of the potential of the bio-economy with exciting new products, new technologies and new markets.”

Interested parties are encouraged to join the Network at http://www.fpac.ca/bio-pathways-partnership/

For more information on the Bio-pathways project please visit www.fpac.ca/bio-pathways