Endowment Plans Georgia Wood-to-Energy Project to Test Model for Asset Creation

As vitally important as family-supporting jobs are — especially in this economy — can a private business be “designed” to do more than provide jobs and generate profits for its owners?  That’s the question that the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities (the Endowment) hopes to answer with its investment in a wood-to-energy facility slated for east-central Georgia.

The North Star-Jefferson project is a partnership between the Endowment and North Star Renewable Power.  The 23 Megawatt plant proposed for construction near Wadley, Georgia would use a well-proven technology while testing a starkly different ownership model.
 
“The Endowment would control up-to 40% of the facility through a wholly-owned for-profit subsidiary (Community Wealth through Forestry, Inc. — CWF),” says Endowment President Carlton Owen.  “The intent is to test an ownership model that has a for-profit business partnering with a community – with CWF initially providing the funding and vehicle for community interests. This creates an entirely different mechanism that sees a significant portion of the profits from the business going directly to address one or more priority community needs in addition to the expected benefits that flow from a private business – jobs, taxes, purchases of goods and services, etc.” Click here to read the full press release or here to read an emerging blog series about the project.