Sustainable Converting Impressive numbers:
Giving back to the environment Every second, Metsä Group delivers a tree seedling to a forest owner for planting. This amounts to 30 million seedlings annually and provides the foundation for sustainable forest management, helping to guarantee the supply of fresh fibres – the main raw material ofMetsä Board’s products
F
or Metsä Board, a key part of sustainable forestry is forest renewal. “Here in Finland, four new seedlings
are planted for each harvested tree,” says Soili Hietanen, Metsä Board’s VP of sustainability and energy. “Metsä Group delivers seedlings to forest-owners for planting, and during the past couple of years this has amounted annually to 30 million seedlings, which is an impressive number. “Good management in the northern forests has
resulted in increased growing stock in Finnish and Swedish forests. Growing stock is increasing annually by 30 to 40 per cent and currently the annual forest growth exceeds the amount of wood harvested. Another important but less known fact is that northern forests don’t require watering, as the Nordics are one of the world’s water-richest areas.” Forestry for Metsä Board is not only about
renewal, but equally important is certification. Hietanen expands: “We promote forest
certification in all of the regions where we operate and actively participate in its development via our parent company Metsä Group. The Group uses certification because it helps to conserve biodiversity, safeguards the rights of people working in forests and ensures that forests can continue to be used for recreational purposes.” Metsä Group and Metsä Board actively work to
support certification and has a stated Group target to keep the proportion of certified wood
used in its operations at over 80 per cent. In 2015, 75 per cent of the wood used by Metsä Board came from certified forests. The degree of forest certification varies globally
and in Metsä Group’s and Metsä Board’s wood supply areas, the certification levels are high. The wood for Metsä Board paperboards comes mainly from Finland and Sweden where its mills are located, with some also coming from the Baltic countries and Russia. Ideally the wood is sourced within a 100-kilometre radius of the pulp mill.
THE IMPORTANCE OF TRACEABILITY In Finland, the wood comes mainly from 116,000 Finnish forest-owners that also own Metsä Group’s parent company Metsäliitto Cooperative. In Russia, the forest areas are leased by the Group companies and are covered by sustainable forest management certificates. Whether the wood comes from Finland,
Sweden, Baltics or Russia, an important factor is traceability. “We know the origin of 100 per cent of the wood we use and whether it comes from certified forests or forests that are otherwise controlled. A key point of traceability is that it helps ensure we know all our wood is legally supplied,” explains Hietanen. “All our mills have certified environmental
management and quality management systems (ISO14001 and ISO9001), as well as PEFC and FSC chain of custody certification and FSC controlled wood status. Metsä Board also fulfils the obligations of the European Union Timber
Regulation and the US Lacey Act, which both prohibit the marketing of illegally harvested timber and timber products.” Here, technology helps: Modern information
systems and digital maps are used during harvesting, enabling the whole wood chain to be traced back to the actual tree stump.
FULL USE OF A TREE “Even though here in the North we have plenty of wood, each harvested tree is used to the full,” continues Hietanen. “Trees are a valuable raw material which must be utilised efficiently. Each of Metsä Group’s five business areas contribute to maximising efficiency. Logs are utilised in the Group’s sawmills and plywood mills and sawmill by-products, like wood chips and sawdust, are used as raw material for pulp or for energy. Other by-products are utilised for soil improvement, while sawdust may also be used to surface jogging paths. Pulp wood is utilised as the main raw material
in the Group’s pulp, board and tissue paper mills. Residues such as bark and the black liquor produced as a by-product of the pulp-making process, can all be incinerated to produce bioenergy for use in the company’s own production processes and in neighbouring communities. Finally, the wood-based products produced by Metsä Group can be reused and recycled and eventually burnt to generate energy at the end of their life cycle. “Our operations are a good example of a circular economy,” Hietanen points out. Hietanen makes reference to the UN’s
Sustainable Development Goal about ‘life on land’. “The goal is about sustainably managed forests, combatting desertification and halting biodiversity loss. I feel that Metsä Board’s and Metsä Group’s work really helps to contribute towards achieving this goal.” Returning to the beginning of this article about
delivering a tree seedling every second – how many did Metsä Group deliver while you were reading this article? Around 350!
uwww.metsaboard.com
20
October 2016
www.convertermag.co.uk
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