Q&A with Noel Myburgh, APRIL2030 Climate Positive Champion and FiberOne Director at APRIL Group

Following a strategy of integrating APRIL2030 into our business operations, the APRIL2030 Steering Committee appointed business unit heads as Champions of each of the commitment pillars – Climate Positive, Thriving Landscapes, Inclusive Progress and Sustainable Growth.

This is the first of a series that shares the perspectives of these Champions who, since its launch in 2020, have led the integration of the APRIL2030 targets and performance indicators in forestry, manufacturing and other aspects of APRIL’s operations.

Noel Myburgh is responsible for the company’s fibre operations planning, peatland science and operational quality control and is the Climate Positive Champion. Here he talks about APRIL’s path towards its Climate Positive targets, including some of the challenges involved in achieving these tough but necessary ambitions.

Q. How is APRIL proceeding on its journey towards its Climate Positive targets in the context of a growing business?

“Finding the right path towards the achievement of our Climate Positive targets has required an empirical trial and error approach to analysing our environmental footprint, particularly in the context of a business that is achieving increased productivity and output.

There is a mix of pathways that we have had to explore, including finding the optimal energy balance for our mills to help achieve decarbonisation targets, exploring biofuel for transport and accelerating our shift to solar energy. We are also conscious that our biggest challenge is in land management, particularly considering we’re operating on peatlands as part of a licensed concessions.

With so many different potential avenues to reduce our emissions footprint, we have had to be clear-headed and data-led on where to put most of the effort. We’re working in an environment where sometimes we don’t know yet what the rules of the game are. But we’re moving ahead because we know it’s the right thing to do for our business, as well as our climate targets.”

Q. The company is at the midway point on its path to 2030. What is one milestone you’ve achieved that you would call out?

“There has been some good progress, particularly toward achieving net zero emissions from land use. Our emissions from land use change continue to come down due to our steadfast commitment to no deforestation and no conversion, and our continued focus on sustainable forest management.

Land use change emissions continue to decrease from 4.8 MtCO2 in 2019 to 3.5 MtCO2 in 2024. While we will keep working on ways to reduce emissions, we still anticipate having residual emissions and we are one of the few companies that have long established, significant conservation and restoration areas under our management which we can use as nature-based carbon credits.

Most notable is Restorasi Ekosistem Riau or RER, which comprises an area of conservation forest the size of greater London at around 150,000 hectares and is a verified carbon project under Verra standards. This places us in a uniquely advantageous position of being able to incorporate carbon credits within our own value chain.”

Q. APRIL invests heavily in science to support its targets. Are there any initiatives that stand out?

“A significant achievement was the publication of a five-year study of greenhouse gas emission data drawn from different land use profiles in the respected scientific journal, Nature. This was a huge milestone for our peatland science team and our R&D programme. The research gave us a more realistic and accurate picture of the different categories of land use and their related emissions. As well as the practical application of the study, the response from the international science community has been very positive as well.”

Q. APRIL2030 commitments and targets are ambitious. What are some of the challenges you’ve had to overcome along the way?

“Our targets to achieve 90 percent renewable energy supply at our mill and a 20 percent reduction in product emission intensity have been challenging due to our expanding operations. We are currently tracking at 84 percent, slightly down from the 88.24 percent recorded in 2023 because we have higher energy requirements. We will continue to boost our renewable and clean energy sources to recover this ground.

A further challenge has been the introduction of an additional manufacturing plant for producing paperboard products. This has also required an increased amount of renewable and clean energy because as we go further with downstream diversification, we produce less biomass byproducts that we can use for energy generation.”

Q. What role has solar played in your energy transition strategies?

“Solar has evolved into major source of renewable energy powering our operations. As well as the solar panel installations at our mill, we have identified an opportunity to roll out solar panels at the remote offices in some of the company’s 27 plantation estates spread around Riau Province.

These are currently powered by diesel generators and require regular fuel deliveries. We have a target to generate 50 percent of the energy needs of our fibre operations – including planting, harvesting and transport across over 450,000 hectares of commercial plantations – from renewable and cleaner sources by 2030.

Our solar capacity was further boosted with the installation of panels on the roof of our new paperboard production facility that was commissioned in early 2024. This has taken total capacity to 26.3 MW, meaning our original target of 25 MW by 2030 has already been exceeded. This has enabled us to double our solar target to 50MW by the end of the decade.”

The recent report – Progress & Pathways: An Update on APRIL’s 2030 Sustainability Commitments and Targets – can be downloaded here.