Tell Drax to stop burning forests for energy

Cut block that has been logged for forest biomass

Drax has been exposed for logging forests while claiming to use only waste wood for its massive biomass operations. We’ve seen and documented the evidence with our own eyes and BBC Panorama’s recent documentary, The Green Energy Scandal Exposed, brought it into the global spotlight.

Burning trees is dirtier than coal at the smokestack – this is far from a “climate-friendly solution” to the fossil fuel economy, yet big corporations are receiving billions in taxpayer dollars to scale up production of biomass as a ‘renewable energy’. Former coal company Drax is one of the largest-growing threats – operating under the guise of clean energy. Its marketing materials give the impression it only uses ‘residuals’, ‘waste’ and ‘low-value’ logs.

Drax is polluting communities, mechanizing union jobs and fuelling climate chaos, and we can’t let it get away with this scandal. Right now we have a key opportunity to force Drax to rethink its plans. After being exposed on the world stage by BBC Panorama, British Columbian politicians have called for its licenses to be suspended, investors are dropping their shares, and the UK government has launched an investigation. Drax is vulnerable right now, so it’s the perfect moment to ramp up public pressure by targeting its key executives to let them know we’re watching.

Send an email to Drax’s CEO and the Director of Sustainability to demand they stop burning forests for energy.

Email Drax decison-makers

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Mr.

Will

Gardiner

Drax Group

Mr.

Alan

Knight

Drax Group

Dear Mr.{contact_data~lastName},

I was outraged to learn that your company is logging and burning forests and branding it as 'clean energy'.

There is clear evidence from organizations, journalists, researchers and most recently BBC Panorama that shows the “diseased and rotten” logs Drax claims only to use are a tiny percentage when looking at the Canadian Forestry database over the last year.

Your company has bought licenses, outbidding timber companies, to log primary forests (by the UN definition) in areas like British Columbia including in old growth ecosystems, while being heavily subsizied by the UK government.

It leaves me wondering, is your company deliberately misleading the public using the language of ‘residuals’, ‘waste’ and ‘low-value’ logs when it's clear that your pellets are sourced from old growth and other primary forests in BC?

It takes many decades to centuries for forests to regain the majority of their carbon storage after being logged. International and national carbon accounting on this is flawed and you’re taking advantage of it.

The science is clear that burning forest biomass is dirtier than coal at the smokestack. These emissions will not be sequestered in time to keep global warming below 1.5C, but instead hasten the climate crisis by destroying these precious carbon sinks and contributing to the loss of biodiversity.

To meet the scale of the crisis we face, we must move beyond burning.

Wood pellets are the lowest value production for forest communities while simultaneously devastating ecosystems and the planet.

We deserve true investments in clean energy and climate protection that do not devalue and mechanize away union jobs and that respect the land. It's time for Drax to shift its business model away from biomass production to truly clean energy sources like wind or solar.

I look forward to hearing back from you.

Signed,

{user_data~First Name}{user_data~Last Name}

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