Biomass Supplies Applies for RSB Sustainability Certification

Working with smallholders, company is creating new revenue streams for local farmers and helping promote local industry and employment

Geneva, 29 May 2014 – The Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB) is pleased to announce that Biomass Supplies has applied for RSB certification.

Biomass Supplies is pioneering innovative and progressive partnerships with small farmers and land owners to access biomass supply that can be used both for pellet production (an alternative to coal) and for power generation.

RSB’s planned sustainability certification will cover Gliricidia, a fast rotation coppice tree, used as a fence in Sri Lanka. By working with smallholders, Biomass Supplies is creating new revenue streams for local farmers and helping promote local industry and employment. In the last 12 months, Biomass Supplies has been supplying Gliricidia to two garment manufacturing companies who use the fuel wood for their biomass boilers.

The first of these companies is Brandix, Sri Lanka’s single largest apparel exporter. The Brandix factory in Polonnaruwa has been receiving regular supplies from Biomass Supplies since May 2013. Brandix is one of the pioneers and is considered an inspiring trailblazer in eco-friendly apparel manufacture on the global stage. The company was recently recognised as Sri Lanka’s ‘Organisation Committed to Green’ in 2013 by the Green Building Council of Sri Lanka.

Commending Biomass Supplies on its application for RSB certification, Iresha Somarathna, Head of Environment and Energy Management at Brandix said “We view this certification as important to our business as Brandix encourages its suppliers to be verified as sustainable, in line with the Group’s commitment to progressively reduce its environmental footprint.”

“By committing to RSB certification, Biomass Supplies is confident that its business model and operations are compatible with the highest environmental and social standards available through voluntary certification,” said Rolf Hogan, RSB’s Executive Secretary. “We welcome their participation and engagement with the RSB”.

“We wanted rigorous sustainability certification to verify our biomass raw material – Gliricidia – which is obtained from a myriad of small farmers. We decided to progress with RSB certification on the advice of WWF,” said Lucky Dissanayake, Founder of Biomass Group (the parent company). “RSB certification will also help in our expansion plans.”

About RSB
The Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB) is a global sustainability standard and voluntary certification system for biomaterials production. The RSB standard represents a consensus of over 100 organizations around the world including farmers, refiners, governments, UN agencies and NGOs. It was designed to ensure the sustainability of biomaterials production while providing user-friendly tools for industry to demonstrate compliance. RSB certification validates sustainable production including greenhouse gas emission reductions, respect for

human rights, protection of biodiversity and water and maintenance of food security.RSB is a full member of the ISEAL Alliance, which defines codes of good practices for standard-setting organisations.

About Biomass Group
Biomass Group is a new renewable energy company with an ambitious vision: to develop biomass energy resources across the Equator and to generate power from resource. The Biomass Group has chosen Sri Lanka as the first stage in demonstrating this business, and Biomass Supplies (a wholly owned subsidiary) is developing the country’s abundant biomass resources through innovative partnerships with Sri Lanka’s farmers and plantation owners.

The result of this partnership will be transformative impact in the rural communities – particularly for women in villages – and to raise the standard of farming practices. In the process, a virtually limitless source of commercial biomass for renewable energy base load power generation will become available – the basis for their Gliricidia Revolution programme.

Biomass Supplies was incorporated in Singapore in March 2012, following three years of development by the founding team.

Contacts

RSB
Mr. Rolf Hogan
RSB’s Executive Secretary
Phone: +41 22 7964037
Email: rolf.hogan@rsb.org

Biomass Group
Ms. Lucky Dissanayake
Phone: +94 (0) 7728 75820
Email: lucky@biomass-group.com

Brandix officials
Mr. Iresha Somarathna
Head of Environment and Energy Management
Email: IreshaS@brandix.com

Mr. Anuk De Silva
Manager – Corporate Communications
Email: AnukD@brandix.com

Source

Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB), press release, 2014-05-29.

Supplier

Biomass Group
Brandix Lanka Ltd.
Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB)

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