Green Doers

Aug 1, 2009

Gordon Buchanan
Owner, Buchanan Lumber
High Prairie

Gordon Buchanan, 80, began his career in his family’s sawmill in Manitoba in 1945 and in 1956 talked his parents into moving the business to High Prairie. A half-century later, after making repeated trips with a consultant and his son, Greg, to Europe and the United States to source new equipment, Buchanan invested $21 million to make Buchanan Lumber Alberta’s first and only zero-waste sawmill.

AV: It’s been a brutal few years for the forest sector. Why did you do this now?
Gordon Buchanan: Last year was the worst year we ever had in the business. But as far as going green [goes], we’ve been working on that for some time. We put in a hot water system that heats our buildings and heats four dry kilns using mill waste as a fuel supply. We’re selling hog fuel to DMI [High Level Lumber], the surplus that we’ve got. We’re just starting to bag our shavings for horse bedding. We’re also in the fire log business. We have three fire log machines running and we’re also selling green sawdust to the oilfields. Our next project is to see what we can do about our power bill. So if we could get something more value-added there, to survive in the bad times you’ve got to value-add every component part of it.

What spurred you to strive for zero waste?
For years and years we had a teepee burner. We happen to be set up on the west side of High Prairie and of course the prevailing wind comes from the west and northwest. So there were some troubles with the town, the fly ash. There were complaints…. It was driven by necessity as well as by environmental [considerations]. I’d like to be the cleanest mill in the country if we can be. I’d like to have that before I’m finished in the business.

How has it gone so far?
It’s added to our cost of doing business. We’re investing more money [than we would have otherwise] to accomplish what we want to do. It’s not been easy. We’re slowly getting to the point where the stuff we’ve got in there now – the shavings, the bagging and all that – we hope to get going full speed.

Would you have done anything different, knowing what you know now?
I don’t think so. We would have still lived with our system. The choice was between producing pellets or fire logs. Most [Canadian] mills went to pelletizing. We went with logs. We’re breaking new ground so it’s tougher that way.

After 60 years in business, do you have anything to say to business people starting out?
The best advice I can give is that nothing’s real easy. You can get discouraged but you can’t give up. To be successful, you have to hang in there and get it done. We’re able to survive in the tough times mainly because our people have really buckled down. Our production cost per unit is keeping us in the ballgame. Other than that, we would be shut down.

Are you pursuing other green initiatives, outside of the waste reduction issue?
I’m proud of the fact that our reforestation is costly but it’s working. I like to go out into the woods. I don’t often get the chance these days. There’s some tremendous young trees coming up. We had a lot wiped out by fires but it’s encouraging…. In the very long term, it is [an asset] for the company.