FPInnovations

contribute to every aspect of daily life. Building on a century of research, FPInnovations offers proven solutions and technologies that can be quickly implemented by any organization. Business View Magazine spoke with FPInnovations representatives: Erol Karacabeyli, Principal Scientist; Joane St-Onge, Senior Director of Sustainable Construction; and Terry Knee, CCO about the organization’s notable achievements, and insights into the Canadian wood products industry. The following is an edited transcript of the conversation. BVM: Can you give us a brief overview of the organization? Knee: “FPInnovations was born out of three research institutes, each of which operated in Canada for a very long time – The Pulp & Paper Institute of Canada (Paprican) started back in the 1925; the Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada (FEROC) started in 1975; and Forintek Canada Corporation was originally founded as a government agency in 1918 and later privatized. In 2007, those three entities merged together with the support of industry and government to create one of the few research institutes, world- wide, that treated everything from the forest right through to the value added end products – whether that’s lumber, paper, engineered wood, or bio products and a lot of exciting things that we’re coming out with that go way beyond anything we would have thought of 20 years ago. “The mission hasn’t changed that much in the sense that the three institutes that are now FPInnovations are there to do applied research to support the sector. That means transformation of the sector and helping develop new markets. It’s about putting the science on the table to show that wood is as equally viable as other solutions that are out there. Our members and affiliates represent industries from all sectors on the forest side – everything from companies and contractors doing harvesting in the forest, right to the large pulp and paper mills and sawmills and engineered wood products manufacturers.” FP INNOVAT IONS