Industry leaders take on greening.

• Author: Louiseize, Kelly
• Position: Energy & Environment

Environmental acuity in the industrial sector is becoming increasingly prevalent. While government influence and public persuasion often play a role in the push for environmental cleanup, industry leaders are making the investment simply as an act of good corporate citizenship.

Dynea Canada Ltd. in North Bay is following the lead on corporate citizenship by investing $1.3 million to decrease formaldehyde emissions at its plant. The purchase and installation of two catalytic converters at its plant has been a corporate decision made without influence of government or the public, says Lorne McDonald, plant manager in North Bay.

"This is not a productivity improvement; there is no revenue from these things," says McDonald. "We were not mandated to do this."

Dynea is one of the world's leading providers of adhesive products used in making furniture, wood and non-wood items.

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Part of their goal is to be environmentally friendly and safe to the employees and the community out of which they operate. Continual improvements such as this will exceed the environmental compliance laws, and that will "put the plant over the top, which is a nice place to be," McDonald remarks.

Garry McClean, vice-president of northeastern North American operations for Dynea Canada Ltd., says the company participated in a government project called Selected Targets for Air Compliance (STAC). The purpose was for companies to voluntarily retest stack emissions and then report back to the government with the findings.

There is no law that requires companies to go back and retest the facilities after having been in operation, McClean says. However, Dynea wanted to investigate its emissions because "it make good corporate sense."

As a result, tests "indicated we potentially might have a problem with some of our emissions," McClean adds. "I guess you could say we were borderline, but still within provincial requirements."

Ministry of Environment officials came to the plant site and did testing, only to find the company was not exceeding provincial requirements, but...