Calgary Demonstration Program recipient of the Low Carbon Economy Challenge Funding

https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change.html

We are excited to announce that the Calgary Demonstration Program is expanding!

SYLVIS has worked with the City of Calgary since 2013 on the establishment of a marginal land improvement project using short-rotation coppice willows fertilized with municipal biosolids. The project sets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through carbon sequestration. Biosolids use in short-rotation coppice willow system sequesters carbon in several ways including soil organic carbon from fine root turnover, litter-layer organic carbon from leaf/litterfall, and from the harvested aboveground biomass. Over time this system will act as a sink for carbon as soil organic matter accumulates, improving the overall productivity of marginal agricultural soils when they are returned to agricultural crop production after a period of approximately 25 years.

The City of Calgary has received approximately $2 million dollars in federal funding through the Low Carbon Economy Challenge to expand the willow biomass plantation by a further 300 hectares, increasing the capacity for carbon sequestration, and other direct / indirect benefits of the system. This project delivers on the Low Carbon Economy Challenge’s goals of reducing carbon, saving money, and creating jobs.