The forests in Finland cover approximately three quarters of the country’s land area, contributing significantly to decarbonisation through the sequestration of carbon dioxide, while also safeguarding the region’s biodiversity. The right ecological balance in managing the Finnish forests is, therefore, incredibly important. Equally essential, however, are the opportunities made available by the natural resources that the forests provide. Finnish forest industry company, Metsä Group, was founded by Finnish forest owners almost one hundred years ago and it manages the forests with a careful balance between preservation and efficient usage.“Metsä Group was created with a very clear goal, to create value for the Finnish forests owned by its cooperative members”, says Metsä Group’s President and CEO Ilkka Hämälä. In pursuit of this goal, Metsä Group creates various bioproducts and is in the process of developing new ones. 

“When we talk about bioproducts,” explains Niklas Von Weymarn, CEO of Metsä Group’s innovation company Metsä Spring, “we refer to different products made out of biomass, in our case made out of wood.” Wood is an incredibly versatile and useful material, retaining functionality down to a micro level. “Well, we use the wood as efficiently as possible, so we make solid wood products, we make pulp, and further from pulp paperboard and tissue paper, and then energy if there is no better use for the wood.” To facilitate such production, Metsä Group uses e.g. a bioproduct mill in Äänekoski, An EUR 1.5 billion investment completed in 2018, and one of the largest wood processing facilities on a global level. This provides numerous benefits to the local area, as Von Weymarn explains. “It's obviously providing jobs for the local people, for people upstream and downstream of the actual mill, it is creating export income to Finland and also tax in various ways to the Finnish government.” In this way, Metsä Group ensures its use of ecological resources has social benefits in addition to economic ones through the creation of its bioproducts.

The wood used in Metsä Group’s activities is a highly sustainable resource. Wood products serve as a green alternative to fossil-based products and retain their sustainable benefits even when harvested. Sawmill Manager, Liisa-Maija Perävainio, provides an example, “A wooden building will function as a carbon storage for its whole life cycle, for decades, or even for centuries.” Similarly, Metsä Group provides pulp-based paperboard in order to replace plastic-based materials. Ilkka Harju, Packaging Service Director explains, “My favourite example is the paperboard lid, which is used for coffee cups.” Simply using pulp-based lids has a significant effect given the group’s wide reach. “Globally, we are talking about billions of lids, and understanding that when we are replacing the plastic, that is a tremendous amount that we are cutting the carbon footprint at the same time.”

The sourcing of wood for such products is carried out in a tightly controlled and sustainable manner. Following the regeneration felling of trees, it is compulsory by law to establish a new forest with native Finnish species of trees as specified under forest law. Almost all wood sourced by Metsä Group is certified and all wood is traceable to its origin. To safeguard forests’ biodiversity Metsä Group has various means in place on top of the requirements by the law and certification schemes. By following these, Metsä Group ensures its wood sourcing is sustainable. This is an important consideration for the organisation, as Communications Manager, Krista Kimmo, makes clear. “In sustainable wood sourcing we have three main aspects; economical sustainability, ecological sustainability, and social sustainability, and all of those have to be in balance so we can say that our wood supply is sustainable.”

The Finnish forests are a unique and valuable resource. Every year Finnish forests grow much more than they are harvested. They are also a location for many kinds of leisure activity and a home for a huge amount of species. This has not gone unnoticed by the residents of Finland, and the forests are treasured fiercely. Metsä Group walks a fine line between the need for conservation and the demand for value creation. Through its activities, the group is ensuring both goals are achieved in a manner that provides sustainable benefits for all involved.