The forestry subsidiary of Ence-Energía y Celulosa, Norte Forestal, has been awarded FSC ® (Forest Stewardship Council ®) certification on 3,000 hectares of eucalyptus of its assets in northern Spain, where thus it duplicates its certified surface to 6377 ha, after successfully completing the external audit that verified compliance with the indicators set by this demanding international certification scheme.
By obtaining these two certifications, the certified forest assets managed by Ence’s subsidiaries in the Iberian Peninsula reaches 26,969 ha through FSC ® system and 61,924 ha by the PEFC system (between its Silvasur and Norte Forestal subsidiaries) .
The company has been at the fore in undertaking certification projects in Spain, not only implementing programs to certify their forests, but also establishing mechanisms to ensure the traceability of wood, and extending this policy to their immediate environment encouraging their partners and collaborators’ surfaces certification, and prioritizing the purchase of certified wood.
To Ence, forest certification is the best tool to ensure the community that the management to provide them the forest products they use, is environmentally friendly, socially responsible, and economically viable.
Consistently, one of the measures put in place for promoting forest certification of individuals who sell the wood to Ence has been the creation of forestry groups aimed at collectively certifying the surfaces they
manage.
Local Industry
Ence in Spain generates over 11,000 jobs, both direct and indirect, from which about 60% are related to forest management and reside in rural areas. Thus, Ence adds a significant territorial structuring effect that contributes to the creation of income and the population’s fixing, avoiding the abandonment of rural areas.
Ence produces more than 1,240,000 tons of high quality eucalyptus pulp at its plants in Huelva, Navia (Asturias) and Pontevedra, where environmental friendly technologies and continuous improvement processes are applied to boost competitiveness and quality.
It is also the first company in Spain in renewable energy production based on forest biomass, with an installed capacity of 180 MW of biomass and additional 49 MW of cogeneration based in gas, enough to supply the electricity needs of more than a million and a half people.
