SBP has today opened a public consultation on the Final Draft Regional Risk Assessment (RRA) for the Province of British Columbia, Canada. Interested parties are invited to provide written comments on the draft.
The Final Draft RRA for the Province of British Columbia, Canada has been prepared at the request of the Wood Pellet Association of Canada (WPAC), which provided financial support for developing the RRA in accordance with SBP RRA Procedure v1.0. The risk assessment work was facilitated by Hopkin Forest Management Consulting Ltd.
The Final Draft RRA may be viewed at: https://sbp-cert.org/documents/consultation-documents/live-consultations/risk-britishcolumbia/. Interested parties are invited to provide written comments to info@sbp-cert.org by the close of business on Monday, 5 October 2020.
Regional Risk Assessments are a key part of SBP’s focus on identifying and mitigating risks associated with sourcing feedstock for biomass wood pellet and woodchip production. The SBP certification system is designed to provide assurance that all feedstock is sourced legally and sustainably.
Feedstock certified at the forest level through FSC® or PEFC schemes and feedstock from recycled sources is automatically SBP-compliant. All other feedstock must be evaluated using a risk-based approach.
Typically, the Biomass Producer – a pellet or woodchip mill – is responsible for carrying out the risk assessment and putting in place mitigation measures to manage any specified risks such that they can be considered as controlled and hence low risk. It is the role of an independent, third-party accredited Certification Body to determine, amongst other things, that the feedstock evaluation has been correctly undertaken.
The purpose of a Regional Risk Assessment is to evaluate an entire geographic region and determine the risks associated with sourcing feedstock for biomass wood pellet or woodchip production from that region. Thus, the need for individual Biomass Producers to conduct risk assessments is avoided. Further, Regional Risk Assessments are particularly valuable where statutory protection for forested land is limited.
