Power company Drax has continued to burn wood from rare forests in Canada classified as “no go areas”.
All of the 6.5 million tonnes of wood pellets burned by Drax each year are produced overseas.
The news follows energy security and net zero secretary Claire Coutinho granting a green light on Drax’s bioenergy carbon capture and storage project.
Drax has previously argued burning biomass is carbon neutral as regrowing sustainable forests absorbs similar amounts of carbon dioxide as burning the wood in a power plant.
However, A BBC Panorama investigation found the power station emits about 12 million tonnes of carbon a year, but under international rules the UK doesn’t have to count these emissions.
Following the investigation, Drax denied taking wood from primary forests but said it would not apply for further logging licences in British Columbia, Canada.
However, the company still takes whole logs from forests that have been cut down by timber companies.
In 2023, Drax tool company took more than 40,000 tonnes of wood from so-called “old-growth” forests, which the provincial government says provides “unique habitats, structures and ecological functions”.
Subscribe to Sustainability Beat for free
Sign up here to get the latest sustainability news sent straight to your inbox everyday
British Columbia campaign group Conservation North Ecologist Michelle Connolly said making pellets from old forests can never be sustainable.
“Old-growth forests in British Columbia are almost gone because of 70 years of logging to feed sawmills and pulp mills, and Drax is helping push our remaining ones off the cliff, along with our native biodiversity,” she said.
In response to the latest findings by the BBC, Drax admitted it has taken wood from old-growth forests.
But it told Panorama that 77% of the material for its Canadian wood pellets came from sawdust and sawmill residues, with the rest coming from forestry residues and low-grade logs.
A Drax spokesperson says that it keeps its sourcing policy and practices under regular review so that they “take account of evolving forest dynamics, legislation, policy, and science”.
It also said that it decided in October 2023 to stop sourcing wood from old-growth priority deferral areas, and that “work to implement this decision through the supply chain is ongoing”.
The company doesn’t dispute that it is still taking wood from old-growth sites that are not priority deferral areas.
