Metsä Group's year 2024
Review of the President and CEO: The Group’s financial position remains strong
Weak economic development characterised 2024. In Europe and China, our main market areas, weak economic growth reduced our sales volumes, and continued high wood costs weighed down our result. Nevertheless, the Group’s financial position remained strong.
Group’s financial position has remained strong
Weak economic development characterised 2024. In Europe and China, our main market areas, weak economic growth reduced our sales volumes, and continued high wood costs weighed down our result. Nevertheless, the Group’s financial position remained strong.
After a financially weak 2023, strong growth continued to elude the market in 2024. Demand in the mechanical forest industry was undermined by the recession in the European construction industry. The pulp market was affected by muted demand in China, and in the paperboard industry, the market was hampered by the exceptional import volumes of Chinese paperboard, especially in the southern and eastern regions of the Mediterranean. For the global economy – and especially for Europe – 2024 was a period of weak economic growth.
Continued strong development
The Group’s financial position has remained strong despite the weak cycle. We had a year of record investment in 2023, especially because of the Kemi bioproduct mill’s construction. We continued to make investments in 2024, the largest of which were the next-generation tissue paper production line in Mariestad and the Kerto LVL mill in Äänekoski, which also enables a significant technological leap. Our investments will strengthen our leading market position in these product groups. Metsä Group has been Europe’s leading LVL producer since the 1980s, and we are the leading Nordic operator in the tissue paper market.
Metsä Group is committed to the sustainable long-term renewal of its business. Our development actions cover the value chain, from the forest to the customers who use our products. We assess our ways of working continuously and comprehensively. We are a signatory to the 2003 Global Compact initiative and have pledged to comply with the initiative’s Ten Principles concerning human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption. In the review period, we published a Sustainability Statement in compliance with the sustainability reporting directive taking effect in 2025. This ensures we can meet the evolving demands of ESG reporting in our operations. Data management and up-to-date information systems play a key role in tackling challenges related to business efficiency and sustainability. At the end of 2024, we deployed our revised SAP ERP system in the first industrial business, the Wood Products Industry. The system had previously been deployed as a centralised system in Finance and Wood Supply. In our other businesses, deployment will take place in 2025 and 2026.
We are continuing to develop our competitiveness and product range. In 2024, we released our development programmes to renew the Mänttä tissue paper mill and the Simpele paperboard mill. We carried out a pre-study for a mill producing new Muoto 3D packaging materials in Rauma, pre-engineering for a commercial Kuura textile fibre mill, and a project of a very significant scale for capturing wood-based carbon dioxide from our pulp mills’ flue gases.
Thriving forests are the foundation of our operations
The main goal of Metsä Group’s parent company Metsäliitto Cooperative is to increase the value of its owner-members’ forest assets. Metsä Group has more than 90,000 owner-members, who own approximately 5.5 million hectares of Finnish forest overall. Metsä Group offers them forest services and expertise to help our customers safeguard the yield and health of their forests in the challenging conditions caused by climate change. Forests and forestry are under pressure from various development goals. It is our mission to find a balance between profitable commercial forest use, actions mitigating preparations for climate change and actions promoting biodiversity. Metsä Group has set itself the goal of implementing regenerative forestry by 2030. This means that the forestry measures carried out in commercial forests promote increasingly strong forest biodiversity. The most important measure is Metsä Group Plus service, which enhances elements essential to biodiversity by e.g. increasing the amount of such as decaying wood, retention trees and buffer zones, is an important measure leading to this goal. In 2024, a third of wood trade was carried out in accordance with the Metsä Group Plus model. This makes our specialists’ work tangible in Finnish forests.
Living in a world of scarce resources
Metsä Group joined the group of organisations that have made a circular economy commitment launched by the Ministry of the Environment. We are committed to introducing new products based on our production side streams to the market and to reduce the share of wood material burned.
The circular economy is about resource efficiency. The world’s scarce resources must be used as efficiently as possible to satisfy the needs of the global consumer base that continues to increase. Metsä Group produces products for the everyday needs of people. It must do so resource efficiently, ensuring that the product functionality required by an individual can be produced with minimal resource use across the product life-cycle. For example, in packaging, packaged product loss, the amount of packaging material, and production emissions must be minimised in packaging, while the high post-use recyclability of packaging material must be ensured. The end result must be profitable business that enables continued development and meets the owners’ financial targets. This is the kind of work that Metsä Group employees do every day in cooperation with the customers, partners and Finnish forest owners.
Ilkka Hämälä
President and CEO
We completed investments, the largest of which were the tissue paper production line in Mariestad in Sweden and the Kerto LVL mill in Äänekoski in Finland. Our investments will strengthen our leading market position in these product groups. We also released our development programmes to renew the Mänttä tissue paper mill and the Simpele board mill. Our investments will strengthen our leading market position in these product groups.
Metsä Group has more than 90,000 owner-members, who own approximately 5.5 million hectares of Finnish forest. We offer forest owners forest services and expertise that help our customers safeguard the yield and health of their forests in the challenging conditions caused by climate change.
Forests and forestry are coming under pressure from development targets. It is our mission to find a balance between profitable commercial forest use, preparations for climate change and actions promoting biodiversity.
Metsä Group aims to pursue regenerative forestry by 2030. The Metsä Group Plus service is taking us towards our goal. In 2024, more than a third of wood trade was carried out in accordance with the Metsä Group Plus model. This is how our experts' efforts influence Finnish forests.
Ilkka Hämälä, President and CEO
Year in numbers
-
5,747
M€
Sales
-
203
M€
Comparable operating result
-
9,581
Personnel
-
99.1
%
Suppliers’ commitment to the Supplier Code of Conduct
-
6,500
over
Measures promoting biodiversity from 2023
-
93
%
Share of certified wood
Highlights of 2024
-
HighlightsProgress in carbon capture
HighlightsProgress in carbon captureMetsä Group is at the forefront in capturing carbon dioxide generated by pulp mills. Its production units generate around 12 million tonnes of wood-based carbon dioxide annually, and the company is increasingly focusing on exploring its large-scale capture.
In the autumn of 2024, Metsä Group and ANDRITZ, a technology company, completed their first survey examining what the capture of some four million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the flue gases of a mill the size of the Kemi bioproduct mill would mean in terms of technology and energy.
Metsä Group is progressing stage by stage in the carbon capture project and will pilot carbon capture next summer at the Rauma pulp mill with ANDRITZ. The pilot stage will be followed by plans for a potential demo plant.
The carbon dioxide generated by pulp mills is a valuable side stream that could be captured and used as a raw material for products replacing fossil-based materials and fuels as the technology and markets develop.
Metsä Group aims to develop mills in accordance with the bioproduct mill concept. This means making use of pulp mill side streams to convert wood resource-efficiently into increasingly valuable bioproducts. Harnessing carbon dioxide as a raw material is one example. -
HighlightsKemi bioproduct mill’s first year
HighlightsKemi bioproduct mill’s first yearSeptember 2024 marked the Kemi bioproduct mill’s first year of production. The mill is Metsä Group’s largest investment to date.
The Kemi bioproduct mill runs without any fossil-based fuels, and it is a forerunner in environmental, energy and material efficiency. When running at full capacity, the mill produces 1,000,000 tonnes of bleached softwood pulp, 300,000 tonnes of bleached birch pulp, and 200,000 tonnes of unbleached softwood pulp annually.
In 2024, the mill reached its production target.
The mill’s start-up was interrupted in March 2024 by a gas explosion that caused extensive material damage. Fortunately, no personal injuries were sustained. The repair work resulting from the gas explosion was completed safely and on schedule, and the bioproduct mill was restarted in June 2024. -
Highlights6,586 measures promoting biodiversity
Highlights6,586 measures promoting biodiversityFrom 2023, Metsä Group has implemented 6,586 measures promoting biodiversity. Metsä Group has set itself the goal of improving the state of forest nature by 2030. By then, it intends to adopt regenerative forestry-aligned measures in its owner-members’ forests to increase forest biodiversity. The goal is at least 10,000 measures. This work contributes to the company’s sustainability targets.
Progress in the target has been better than planned. Most of the measures consist of Metsä Group Plus agreements, the number of which increased considerably during 2024.
Metsä Group Plus is a management model that is offered to all the Cooperative’s members on a wood-trade-specific basis. Compared to conventional methods, the management model calls for more retention trees and high biodiversity stumps in forests and wider buffer zones along waterbodies. -
HighlightsProgress in the regenerative land use programme
HighlightsProgress in the regenerative land use programmeMetsä Group’s regenerative land use action programme supports biodiversity in the built environment, especially around our production units. The Kemi pilot project initiated in 2023 continued in 2024.
The Kemi planning area covers more than 600 hectares, and around half of it is in the closed mill area, and the other half in land areas owned by the company. To date, 12 hectares of open habitats have been established in place of lawns using only native vegetation. The reproductive material comprises seeds of more than 100 species, collected from local plant species populations around Kemi.
The town of Kemi is an important partner for us. Among other things, it organises grazing on Metsä Group’s lands, in the Kiikeli park area in the immediate vicinity of the mill. The cattle grazing in Kiikeli are Northern Finncattle, an endangered native breed. They were released to pasture in June 2024, and remained grazing until the end of September.
In accordance with the regenerative land use programme, biodiversity plans will be drawn up for Metsä Group’s 25 mill localities in the next few years. -
HighlightsStrong investment in the future
HighlightsStrong investment in the futureSome of our largest investments in 2024 were the next-generation tissue paper production line in Mariestad in Sweden and the Kerto LVL mill in Äänekoski in Finland, which also enables a significant technological leap.
The value of the Mariestad investment is approximately EUR 370 million, making it one of the tissue paper industry’s largest investments in Europe. The Mariestad mill produces the Nordic tissue paper brands Serla, Lambi and Katrin. The mill expansion includes the construction of a new tissue paper machine, new converting lines, an automated warehouse and new office facilities. The renewed mill will feature the best available technology, which will significantly improve environmental efficiency in terms of water, noise and air emissions.
Metsä Wood’s Kerto LVL mill in Äänekoski will produce beam and panel materials used in the construction industry. The value of the investment is EUR 300 million, and the mill is expected to begin production in late 2026.
In 2024, we also announced our development programmes for the renewal of the Mänttä tissue paper mill and the Simpele board mill. In addition, we carried out a pre-study for a mill producing Muoto 3D packaging materials in Rauma and initiated pre-engineering for a commercial mill for the Kuura textile fibre.
