To:                     AS Graanul Invest, Raul Kirjanen, CEO
                        raul.kirjanen@graanulinvest.com ; info@graanulinvest.com
                           Humala 2, 10617 Tallinn Estonia

Enviva Corporate Headquarters, John Keppler, Chairman and CEO
john.keppler@envivabiomass.com ; info@envivabiomass.com
7200 Wisconsin Ave
Suite 1000
Bethesda, MD 20814 USA

Sender: Maarten Visschers, Fenna Swart, Johan Vollenbroek    

Concerning:       stop destruction of forests in Europe and the United States

Date:                    14 May 2021


Dear Mr. Keppler and Mr. Kirjanen,

You manage the largest and second largest wood pellet factory respectively in the world. We are writing to you because your reputation and credibility as a self-proclaimed "sustainable" multinational company is at stake and in serious decline. This in view of the social and political discussion worldwide about your business activities, namely the destruction and grinding of forests into wood pellets for combustion. You have been conducting an international "sustainability campaign" for quite some time in which you claim to offer a solution to the climate and biodiversity crisis. Nothing is less true. Wood pellets are extracted by means of large-scale and systematic industrial clearing of entire trees and forests. Investigative journalism from various media/ organizations, such as recently the Swedish Dagens Nyheter[1] and Investico[2], exposes, among other things, your misleading communication and business activities. Additional research into the business activities by, among others, SELC (Southern Environmental Law Center) and Dogwood Alliance provide clear insight into the major negative ecological and economic consequences of your business activities. Based on this, we ask you the following two questions:

1. How do you justify your current business activities (felling trees and grinding them into wood pellets) which, among other things, due to the Dutch billions in state subsidies (SDE ++)[3], have led to an increasing profit maximization of you and your company, nature destruction, air pollution, poverty and inequality of residents at the same time?

2. Your company, both Enviva and Granuul Invest, is trying to further expand market share in Europe. For the important ethical and moral reasons mentioned above, we ask you to immediately stop your drive for expansion and to wind down your business activities in the short term so that the way is cleared for truly sustainable energy generation.

Current biomass status

As you probably know, there are global and major social question marks, outrage and criticism of the systematic and massive combustion of wood pellets for energy (electricity and heat). Under the guise of sustainability, forest landscapes are being cleared and burned on a large scale. You will not be surprised that this has nothing to do with sustainability and everything with the billions of state subsidies that are provided for this. The extraction of wood pellets as you carry out leads to a great loss of eco(forest)systems and biodiversity. In addition, burning wood actually leads to more CO2 emissions (15% more than coal and 100% more than gas), even though the political agreements on paper are different. The power stations in which the wood is burned also seriously affect air quality at the local, national and global level.

Biomass train is on a collision course with the EU-residents

We, along with many other forest protection and nature organizations, resident groups, forest experts and scientists from the Netherlands and abroad, have been fighting against this for more than two years, and with success. The awareness and need to act on the colossal environmental and financial disaster caused by subsidized biomass combustion is greater than ever. This ecological disaster has far-reaching consequences for both the climate and the welfare of humans, animals and nature at a global level. In other words, the subsidized biomass combustion train has completely gone on its head and, if you do not turn the tide, is on a collision course with the residents of the Netherlands, Denmark, England and all surrounding EU member states.

Fake news about certification

It has become clear from the many practical reports and evaluations[4] that wood pellets and so-called residual wood in no way meet the requirements on which certification is based. Devastating clear cutting in Estonia[5], other Scandinavian countries (including Sweden[6]) and North America are now more the rule than the exception. The certification, set up with the aim of making the process transparent and verifiable, is used by you as a Trojan horse.

The desired criteria have been brought in with a hidden and unwanted connotation, so that the recipients (executive authorities and the residents) bring about their own downfall in a harmless manner. Certification therefore has a counterproductive effect and is a sham[7]. The loss of biodiversity is catastrophic. To this is added serious air pollution around power stations.
As hundreds of scientists[8] [9] (and the EASAC[10]) point out, these grants are perverse. The so-called “contribution to the solution of the climate problem”, which must be implemented in the coming years through subsidies, is a sham solution that is counterproductive in that period.



  



Drs. Maarten Visschers, Leefmilieu
Dr. Fenna Swart, Comite Schone Lucht Nederland
Drs. Johan Vollenbroek, Mobilisation for the Environment

Mail addresses for correspondence:
info@maartenvisschers.nl;
fennaswart25@gmail.com:
johan@mobilisation.nl

 

                

 


[3] SDE ++, subsidy Stimulation of Sustainable Energy Production and Climate Transition. The SDE ++ is intended for companies and (non-) profit institutions in sectors such as industry, mobility, electricity, agriculture and the built environment. The national government is excluded from participation. In addition to sustainable energy production, this subsidy also stimulates CO2 reduction. https://www.rvo.nl/subsidie-en-financieringswijzer/sde

[9] https://www.wwf.eu/?uNewsID=2128466  500+ scientists tell EU to end tree burning for energy 


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