Sustainability is part of every stage of operations at Lunawood, a Finnish producer of certified ThermoWood®. As its raw material, Lunawood uses Nordic spruce and pine sawn timber from certified forests, which it procures from Finnish sawn timber suppliers such as Metsä Fibre. The thermal modification process is carried out without chemicals, using only heat and steam. The company has invested in improving the energy efficiency of production and optimises transports jointly with logistics partners.
The sustainability of the supply chain is the sum of all its parts. Lunawood seeks to promote sustainability not only in its own production but throughout the entire value chain, including its partners.
Lunawood’s business relationship with Metsä Fibre offers Lunawood valuable information about the sustainable origin of its raw material, which contributes to the sustainability of the first part of the chain.
“Our work with Metsä Fibre for sustainability adds to the credibility of our entire supply chain,” says Maija Masalin, Lunawood’s VP, Marketing and Product Management.
“Finnish raw material is one of our main competitive factors. The chain of custody certification and communication about the sustainable practices of Finnish forestry are the key components of our partnership. We also do benchmarking of the ISO system, life-cycle assessment and waste management.”
Valuable information about the sustainability of forest management
The expertise that Metsä Fibre offers Lunawood includes transparent facts and information about the sustainability of Finnish forest management and the origin of wood.
“We play an important role at the source of raw material,” says Marko Ruottinen, Sustainability Manager at Metsä Fibre. “Aspects related to traceability and origin are precisely what we want to communicate to our customers as accurately and reliably as possible. It is the kind of information that they can confidently use in their own customer communications.”
These are topics in which Ruottinen has provided training for Lunawood’s personnel. Among other things, he has talked about the fact that Finnish forest growth is greater than consumption, and that forests are regenerated after felling. Forest certificates are another important subject.
“It is important for our customers’ international partners, who may not be familiar with the Finnish Forest Act and Finnish forest practices, to know that an independent third party has certified the product’s raw material to be of sustainable origin,” says Ruottinen.
The information provided by Metsä Fibre has evidently promoted Lunawood’s sales.
“We operate in international markets and supply our products to more than 65 countries. The sustainable origin of our product is extremely important. The information provided by Metsä Fibre has allowed us to break into new markets in areas such as South America. Architects and construction professionals in the region are impressed by the source of our wood and by Finnish forest management,” says Maija Masalin.
Interest in safeguarding biodiversity
As environmental awareness increases, Lunawood’s customers are asking increasingly detailed questions about sustainability. Masalin says customers are currently interested in learning more about protecting biodiversity.
Metsä Fibre provides facts for biodiversity discussions from its own operations. The safeguarding of biodiversity is one of Metsä Group’s strategic sustainability targets. The various habitats of Finnish forests are home to more than 20,000 species so this is an important task.
“In our work, safeguarding biodiversity involves measures like protecting herb-rich forests, increasing the volume of decaying wood and leaving high biodiversity stumps on felling sites that will be habitats for different animals and insects. We must also critically discuss how we harvest wood from the forest,” says Marko Ruottinen.
“This means making full use of the trees we fell. Only carefully selected pine, spruce, birch and aspen are used in Metsä Fibre’s pulp and sawn timber production. We leave other broadleaved trees in the forest to maintain biodiversity.”
A long-term, forward-looking partnership
Lunawood and Metsä Fibre both speak positively about the open and active atmosphere of their discussions together. Marko Ruottinen believes that the desire to solve challenges faced by customers throughout the supply chain continues to enhance their relationship. To this, Maija Masalin adds that great things can be achieved through cooperation between two market leaders.
Sustainability is a common goal for the companies. Both have ambitious targets for the 2030s.
“At Lunawood, we aim to continuously reduce our carbon footprint. Our goal is to achieve carbon neutrality in our own operations and direct emissions by 2035,” says Masalin.
She believes the greatest challenge comes from the availability of fossil free energy. Metsä Fibre is working on the same task.
“This is another aspect in which our contribution to our customers’ supply chain will steadily improve. One of Metsä Group’s sustainability targets is that, by the end of 2030, none of our mills will use fossil fuels or emit CO2 emissions into the atmosphere,” says Marko Ruottinen.
Image credit
Norbert Tukaj, Lunawood, Architect: DO ARCHITECTS