An uptick in US builder confidence signals turning point for housing. In related news: single-family starts tick-up in December, and building materials price growth slows. Meanwhile, the future of forestry in British Columbia is discussed at the Natural Resources Forum and the BC Truck Loggers Conference. Related commentary includes:
- Kevin Falcon says the NDP process for getting permits needs fixing
- Unifor points to the damage done when the Liberals were in power
- David Elstone looks to the data to understand what is happening
- Linda Coady says its fibre shortages, cost issues and skill shortages
Other headliners include: Kruger’s all-electric trucks; Structurlam’s temporary curtailment in Arkansas; Cascades’ sustainability nod; Maine’s Ashland mill status; and Waratah’s 50-year celebration. Meanwhile: BC reaches agreement with Blueberry First Nation; and a new Centre for Sustainable Building in Toronto.
Finally, carbon offsets take a hit as researchers encourage carbon capture and storage.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog Editor
There has been a steady pace of curtailment announcements by BC forest products manufacturers. Affected sawmills and pulp mills have shared a consistent reason for their downtime. Lumber producers have said there is a lack of economically available log supply and market conditions. Pulp producers have cited the lack of economically available residual fibre supply. Based on the curtailments made public, over 30% of the BC interior’s sawmilling capacity is currently affected [and] …decreased lumber production means fewer residual chips for pulp mills. …Since September 2021, an estimated 41% of BC’s pulp and paper capacity (eight mills) have been affected by fibre availability issues and have taken or are planning some form of downtime/shut down. This amount of lumber and pulp capacity affected in such a short time frame seems unprecedented. 
KINGSEY FALLS, QC – For the fourth year in a row, the media, research and financial information products company Corporate Knights has named Cascades one of the world’s 100 most sustainable corporations. Of the 6,000 organizations and more analyzed, Cascades ranked 20th. For the second straight year, Cascades ranked first among the 54 organizations analyzed in the Containers & Packaging category. The Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World ranking is the result of a performance analysis of international corporations with more than $1 billion in revenues. In the evaluation, 25 key performance indicators across four areas (economy, environment, social and governance) are taken into account.
New US home construction declined for a fourth-straight month in December, wrapping up a disappointing year for an industry that saw annual housing starts fall for the first time since 2009. Residential starts decreased 1.4% last month to a 1.38 million annualized rate, a five-month low. New construction fell 3% in 2022 after surging the prior year. The December drop was due to a slump in multifamily projects. Single-family homebuilding jumped to a 909,000 annualized rate last month, the most since August. However, for all of last year about 1 million one-family houses were started, down 10.6% from 2021 — the biggest drop since 2009. …Applications to build, a proxy for future construction, fell 1.6% to an annualized 1.33 million units in December, the fewest since May 2020. Permits for construction of one-family homes dropped 6.5% last month, also the lowest since the early months of the pandemic.
FEDERAL WAY, Washington – The Pacific Lumber Inspection Bureau (PLIB) has published a new grading rules book that replaces previous rules for grading softwood. The publication is called WCLB Standard Grading Rules for West Coast and Imported Softwood Lumber, No. 18, 2022 and replaces Standard 17, the previous edition published by the West Coast Lumber Inspection Bureau (WCLIB) written in 1991 with several revisions until the release of the new edition. “The new rule book includes all updates to the NGR grade rules as well as revisions to other grades specific to the WCLB rules. …Significant changes include inclusion of the complete and current National Grade Rule interpretations in addition to WCLB rule interpretations. The new rules book also features updates to machine stress rated (MSR) grade tables and design value tables along with a new seasoning provision for timbers.
I learned of the battle over clearcut logging on Haida Gwaii in the 1970s. Forest companies had been denuding much of the islands by clearcut logging, which had generated growing opposition. In the early 1980s, I flew to Haida Gwaii to interview loggers, forestry officials, government bureaucrats, environmentalists and Indigenous people. One of the people I interviewed was a young Haida artist named Guujaaw, who had led the opposition to logging for years. Unemployment was high in Haida communities, and logging generated desperately needed jobs. So I asked Guujaaw why he opposed the logging. He answered, “Our people have determined that Windy Bay and other areas must be left in their natural condition so that we can keep our identity and pass it on to following generations. The forests, those oceans, are what keep us as Haida people today.”
The B.C. government and Blueberry River First Nations have reached a historic agreement that will guide them forward in a partnership approach to land, water and resource stewardship that ensures Blueberry River members can meaningfully exercise their Treaty 8 rights, and provide stability and predictability for industry in the region. “This agreement provides a clear pathway to get the hard work started on healing and restoring the land, and start on the joint planning with strong criteria to protect ecosystems, wildlife habitat and old forests,” said Chief Judy Desjarlais of the Blueberry River First Nations. “With the knowledge and guidance of our Elders, this new agreement will ensure there will be healthy land and resources for current and future generations to carry on our people’s way of life.”
Owners of a property near Avola, BC (the complainants) are concerned that:
PRINCE GEORGE, BC
“To limit warming to 2C or lower, we need to accelerate emissions reductions. But the findings of this report are clear: we also need to increase carbon removal too,” says lead author Dr Steve Smith from Oxford University. “Many new methods are emerging with potential.” …This new report titled “
The forest carbon offsets approved by the world’s leading provider and used by Disney, Shell, Gucci and other big corporations are largely worthless and could make global heating worse, according to a new investigation. The research into Verra, the world’s leading carbon standard for the rapidly growing $2bn (£1.6bn) voluntary offsets market, has found that, based on analysis of a significant percentage of the projects, more than 90% of their rainforest offset credits – among the most commonly used by companies – are likely to be “phantom credits” and do not represent genuine carbon reductions. The analysis raises questions over the credits bought by a number of internationally renowned companies. …However, Verra strongly disputed the studies’ conclusions and said the methods the scientists used cannot capture the true impact on the ground, which explains the difference between the credits it approves and the emission reductions estimated by scientists.