The northern wood used by Metsä Fibre is supplied from sustainably managed forests in areas where the forests grow more than they are used. Forest regeneration is always part of sustainable forest management, and all forestry operations require environmental values to be considered. Forest regeneration is always ensured after harvesting. Metsä Group uses domestic tree species and seedlings for forest regeneration.
Traceability guarantees sustainable forest management
Increasing the amount of decaying wood in forests and leaving protective thickets for animals during seedling management or clearing before a felling are key to safeguarding the diversity of forest nature. In water protection, the sustainable management of forests growing on peatland plays a key role. Metsä Group is also concretely advancing the biodiversity of forests by selling forest regeneration as mixed pine and spruce cultivation to forest owners. Mixed cultivation produces forests that are more sustainable and diverse than forests with a single tree species.
When all the wood is traceable and comes from certified or controlled forests, the legality of wood supply operations and the acceptability and sustainability of the supply chain can be ensured. A tracing system enables the origin of the purchased wood to be traced all the way to the particular felling site.
90 per cent of the wood Metsä Fibre uses is certified according to the international forest certification systems PEFC™ or FSC®, and all the wood Metsä Fibre receives meets the criteria for controlled wood (PEFC Controlled Sources, FSC Controlled Wood). A value of 90 per cent is an excellent result within the industry. For the sake of comparison, only some 10 per cent of the world’s forests are certified.
With other raw materials such as basic chemicals, process chemicals and packaging materials, traceability is currently being surveyed with the suppliers in connection with product safety questionnaires. This involves disclosing the countries in which the purchased raw materials have been produced. In the future, the analysis will be extended to cover the origin of the suppliers’ main raw materials for relevant materials as well. In 2022, the traceability of raw materials and packaging materials used by Metsä Fibre was 96%. The target is to achieve a 100 per cent traceable and sustainable supply chain for all raw materials by 2030.
Read more about the sustainable supply chain.
International Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to the target:
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