At Metsä Fibre, sustainability and reliability go hand in hand. Careful forest management, the full utilisation of raw materials, and fossil fuel-free production lie at the core of responsible business operations.
Certified wood is a mark of sustainability
Certificates are one of the most concrete means by which to ensure the sustainability of pulp.
Up to 90 per cent of the wood we purchase comes from certified, sustainably managed forests.
Among other things, a forest certification indicates that the forest management is ecologically and financially sustainable and does not weaken the future generations' ability to use forests. Essentially, this means that more trees are planted and grown than consumed.
We use both FSC® and PEFC™ certifications. More than 80 per cent of Finnish forests are PEFC™ certified. The origin of the wood we use is always a hundred per cent traceable – all the way up to the forest. The pulp's supply chain is entirely transparent and fully traceable.
Sustainable raw materials translate into sustainable products
Alongside forest certification, our products meet the requirements set for environmental labels – the Nordic Swan Ecolabel and the EU Ecolabel – and for product safety, which is an indication of the pulp's sustainability and the reliability of operations. Environmental labels are best at accounting for the environmental impact of a product's manufacture and the raw materials used.
Sustainably produced pulp is also a valuable part of all end products. A product is genuinely sustainable only when its raw materials have also been sustainably produced. We want to support our customer's sustainability journey because it benefits all parties. A future free of fossil fuels is achieved together, not alone.
Resource-efficiency is also cost-effective
Using every bit of the raw material is an essential characteristic of pulp production. In addition, we aim to use production side streams in full by 2030. Side streams mean the other bioproducts – besides pulp, tall oil, turpentine and bioenergy – generated by mills, such as the biogas produced from bark.
The use of biofuels makes a modern pulp mill entirely self-sufficient in terms of energy. The electricity self-sufficiency of the Äänekoski bioproduct mill, for example, is more than 200 per cent. The surplus energy is sold to the national grid. The bioproduct mill is already free of fossil fuels.
We aim for entirely fossil-free production by 2030.
The article is based on an interview with Marko Ruottinen, Customer Service and Sustainability Manager at Metsä Fibre.