Sustainability

Xynergo has a particularly strong environmental commitment, as the core of the business strategy is to deliver sustainable fuel to cover the demand to reduce climate gas emissions from transport industry. With environment at the core, the total business strategy of Xynergo is strongly connected to our environmental work and the management is committed to a strong and comprehensive understanding of environmental issues.

Non-food feedstock and Biodiversity

To ensure that there is no competition with food production and no adverse effect on biodiversity it is crucial that the wood is harvested from certified forests and that verification of the procedures are done frequently by independent parties. Procedures to identify potential adverse indirect land-use change tendencies are important.

There is a discussion of whether to subsidise production of non-food feedstocks grown on marginal or forested lands, primarily cassava and sweet sorghum for ethanol production and jatropha for biodiesel. Direct use of low-grade wood might prove more viable, both on the CO2-emissions during cultivation and harvesting and on the final CO2-reduction and energy efficiency of the product and production process.

Xynergo will be participating actively to promote strict environmental and social criteria for sustainable biomass feedstock.

Sustainable forest management

Sustainable forest management is the management of forests according to the principles of sustainable development. Proper forest certification is part of our "licence to operate" as a sustainable company. To guard non-go areas is a crucial component of a viable certification regime. Destruction and degradation of forests must be avoided to ensure long-term viability of our activities.

We will base our production on wood-mass from forests certified by one of the two global certification schemes; the Forest Stewardship Council, FSC, or the Programme for Endorsement of Forest Certifications, PEFC.

Forest certification
What is forest certification?

Certification uses third party verification to ensure that a product or a process is done according to given standards and procedures.
For the forestry industry the main purpose of certification is to ensure that we manage our forests sustainably based on agreed standards
For the forest industry, certification is carried out in 2 phases:
- Sustainable forest management certification (SFM): To ensure that the forests are managed according to what is recognised as sustainable forest management. The core is to maintain biodiversity, productivity, the regeneration capacity and the vitality of the forest to fulfil long term ecological, economic and social functions.
- Chain of custody (CoC): Value chain certification and traceability systems for companies who manufacture or sell forest products. Chain of custody certification ensures that we can trace and quantify how much of the product comes from certified sustainably managed forests

Independent third party control verifies that the forest management is done in accordance with a set of agreed standards. Routines to follow up the verification procedures must be continuously strengthened.

The Forest Stewardship Council (www.fsc.org)

FSC has 10 global principles for forest management.
National standards are derived from the 10 global principles and may vary among different countries
The process of developing a national standard requires stakeholder participation
FSC aims to establish environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the worlds forests

The Programme for Endorsement of Forest Certifications PEFC: (www.pefc.org)

The principle of sustainable forestry follows the 1994 Helsinki Criteria.
National standards are made in the different countries based on PEFC’s minimum requirements for development of national standard
The criteria cover ecological, socially beneficial and economic standards.
Process of developing national standards encourages stakeholder participation

In Europe most of the feedstock today comes from certified forests. The situation is however very different on a global basis where only 10 % is certified (pdf).

Other links: Websites with summary, guidance & comparative information:

WBCSD / WRI guide www.sustainableforestprods.org
Forest certification

Xyn-diesel, synthetic diesel from a biomass feedstock (BTL), has very good environmental performance.

Climate gas emissions

Xyn-fuel
The CO2-reduction potential of Xyn-diesel is 90 % compared to fossil diesel. In addition to the excellent CO2-reduction potential, there is another large up-side; the CO2 resulting from the production comes in a separate stream and can be compressed and deposited or otherwise taken care of, making the whole process carbon-negative, i.e. taking CO2 out of the atmosphere.

The planned Xynergo plant will reduce the Norwegian emissions of CO2 by 700 000 tons annually. If the CO2-stream is handled, the production will remove 1,4 million tons of CO2 annually from the atmosphere.

Xyn-oil
Bio-crude oil will have a life-cycle emission of CO2 of less then 5 % of the CO2 emitted by fossil heating oil. The bio-crude oil is primarily expected to be used in the stationary fuel marked.

Visit this link (pdf).

Local Environmental effects

Xyn-diesel has substantially lower local environmental effects then fossil fuel.

Energy efficiency

Synthetic diesel is the preferred future fuel of the car industry entailing all the good qualities of fossil fuel and none of the bad. There is potential for large gains in efficiency enhancement in the engine technology because of the fuels outstanding qualities.
The overall energy efficiency of the commercial Xyn-diesel plant is estimated at 53%. If the steam and heat is used, as done in combine heat and power plants, the energy efficiency is above 80%.