American Forest & Paper Association President (AF&PA) President and CEO Donna Harman issued the following statement in support of the District of Columbia (D.C.) Circuit Court’s December 23rd decision to remand the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Boiler Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) rule: “With this ruling, the court has provided an opening for the EPA to quickly address concerns and finalize a rule that supports our industry’s capability to generate essential power from its boilers. We’re pleased that the court has listened to our support of a remand, and we urge the agency to work as quickly as possible to bring this rule to closure after 20 years and three tries. “Our industry has been subject to a roller coaster of regulatory uncertainty that needs to stop. We need and deserve affordable and achievable standards that are not constantly in flux.”

Each year during the holiday season people begin decorating and buying gifts. For those that celebrate Christmas, an important decision is choosing a tree. This includes deciding if it will be a real or artificial Christmas tree. How does your decision impact the environment? Cost, convenience, and personal preference are all important considerations, but so too is the environmental impact. Research has shown that locally-sourced natural trees have less environmental impact than artificial ones. An independent Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) study released by the Montreal firm Elliposos determined that real trees have less overall impact in terms of distribution, disposal, and average carbon emissions than their artificial counterparts. The LCA method allows for evaluation of potential environmental impacts of a product (or service) over its entire life cycle and takes raw material processing, manufacturing, transportation, distribution, use, reuse, recycling and disposal impacts into consideration.

Stora Enso has partnered with Altris, a Swedish developer of sodium-ion batteries. The two companies aim to further advance the development and commercialisation of a sustainable battery value chain in Europe. Together, the two companies will drive the adaptation of Stora Enso’s hard carbon solution Lignode® as an anode material in Altris’ sodium-ion battery cells. Lignode® by Stora Enso is a sustainable hard carbon derived from lignin, a product from the manufacturing of pulp, to be used as an anode material in both lithium-ion and sodium-ion batteries. It serves as a more sustainable alternative to current incumbent anode solutions. In addition to its sustainability benefits, lignin makes up 20-30% of a tree, which makes it abundantly available already today. Lignin being a by-product from pulp manufacturing ensures a stable and consistent raw material supply for anode material manufacturing. Lignode is developed in Stora Enso’s pilot plant in Kotka, Finland. Stora Enso is currently upgrading the plant from a technical point of view.