The Navigator Company recently inaugurated a new biomass boiler at its Figueira daFoz industrial complex, in an overall investment totalling €55 million. This investment will allow the company to cut its fossil carbon dioxide emissions at this complex by around 150,000 to 200,000 tonnes per year, or 30% of the group’s emissions, in 2021.
This investment is part of the decarbonization strategy of the company, who decided in 2019 to meet European targets early and achieve carbon neutrality at all of its industrial complexes by 2035, achieving an 86% reduction in its CO2 emissions by this date. Note that Navigator was the first Portuguese company, and one of the first worldwide, to set such an ambitious goal.
Achieving this goal will require a total investment of €154 million, €55 million (around 35%) of which has already been invested to date since Navigator took on the commitment.
Around 400,000 tonnes of biomass will be used each year to operate this new structure. Half of this is comprised of waste from the internal debarking of eucalyptus wood (bark and sawdust), coupled with 200,000 tonnes of residual forest biomass acquired from abroad from operations involving forest management and the cleaning of rural areas.
Using residual forest biomass, the new boiler will generate thermal energy for the company’s production processes, making power generation significantly more efficient (co-generation). The new equipment will have a higher capacity and much more rigorous environmental performance, as a result of The Navigator Company’s investment in the best technology currently available for this purpose.
The Figueira da Foz mill will be the group’s first with electricity produced entirely from renewable sources. Navigator’s remaining mills will trend towards producing 100% of the electricity they consume from renewable sources, reducing fossil CO2 emissions using new technologies, decreasing specific energy consumption and, finally, offsetting 14% of the emissions they cannot eliminate through forests managed by the company or other technologies.
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