Metsä Group, which includes Metsä Fibre, set new sustain- ability goals for 2030 in early 2023. The goals are grouped into three categories based on the ESG criteria of responsible business: environmental responsibility, social responsibility and governance of responsibility.
Environmental responsibility
Metsä Group aims to protect natural diversity by diversifying the forest tree population, favouring mixed forests and conserving the habitats of endangered species. By 2030, Metsä Group intends to leave retention trees and high biodiversity stumps in all regeneration cutting areas. Retention trees are trees left standing in a forest and high biodiversity stumps are trees cut at a height of two to five metres. These methods increase the volume of decaying wood in forests, which benefits many species.
Mixed forests will be increased so that spruce will no longer be the only seedling tree species after 2030. In addition, the company aims to implement 10,000 action points to promote natural diversity. These include, for example burning groups of retention trees, maintenance of herb-rich forests and ridge areas, and water protection measures.
The environmental goals for production focus on resource efficiency and climate impacts. By the end of 2030, Metsä Fibre will no longer use fossil fuels (Scope 1) or buy fossil-based energy (Scope 2). This means that Metsä Fibre’s production will generate zero fossil carbon dioxide emissions.
“We have prepared site-specific roadmaps for all our production plants in order to minimise our Scope 1 and 2 emissions. Half of our mills have already reached the target. The rest are making further investments to become independent from fossil fuels,” says Marko Ruottinen, Sustainability Manager at Metsä Fibre.
The resource efficiency of production plants, including energy and water efficiency, is being constantly improved through active development and investments according to the site-specific roadmaps.
Social responsibility
Metsä Fibre’s corporate culture emphasises fairness and respect both for other people and diversity. Equality is promoted, for instance through an anonymous recruitment process.
“In 2023, the number of anonymous recruitments exceeded our target – 79 per cent of all open recruitments were conducted anonymously,” says Ruottinen.
Metsä Fibre invests heavily in occupational well-being and safety, and the company has a zero accidents culture. In 2024, Metsä Fibre introduced personal safety promises. The purpose of personal safety promises is to commit the work community to a new kind of safety approach and promote a safer working culture.
Governance of responsibility
Responsibility and its governance are at the core of Metsä Fibre’s strategy and daily operations. All employees, not just management, are responsible for the realization and monitoring of the company’s sustainability and responsibility goals. Every employee contributes to the promotion of responsibility, and Metsä Fibre’s aim is to set a personal responsibility goal for each employee. Metsä Fibre’s operations are governed by ethical business practices and the company’s Code of Conduct.
Metsä Fibre also improves responsibility in collaboration with its partners. Ruottinen highlights agreements and common goals set with Metsä Group’s partners as some of the greatest achievements of 2023.
The collaboration agreements aim, among other things, to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from maritime transport and the entire value chain. For example, contracts with Royal Wagenborg, ANDRITZ and Navalis Shipping target a 30% reduction in emissions through technical improvements to the fleet, route optimisation and energy efficient solutions. Metsä Group’s wood procurement also aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from wood raw material deliveries by 30%.
Work continues
Metsä Group updates its sustainability goals regularly. The update process is guided by the development of Metsä Group’s internal sustainability and responsibility work, stakeholders’ ever-stricter requirements and the progress made towards achieving previous goals.
Discover our sustainability targets for 2030.
This article was originally published in Fibre Magazine issue 2025.