Born into a family of engineers in Oulu in northern Finland, in his childhood, Ilkka Hämälä lived next door to the pulp mill of a company also called Oulu. Just a little further away was the Toppila pulp mill. One of the two always gave off a bad smell. In addition, a company called Typpi operated a fertiliser plant nearby, its chimneys spewing out thick smoke.
“The colour resembled that,” says Hämälä, pointing to a green pencil lying on his desk.
He recalls Oulu being an environmental disaster. Pine trees were dead four metres from the top, and the sea stank. The fish caught off the shores of Oulu tasted of the mill.
“My father and I went to Oulu market to buy fish. The merchant used a knife to cut off a small piece of the fish tail and tasted it in front of the customer to show whether it tasted like water from the pulp mill. Fish caught close to Oulu couldn’t be eaten.”
Hämälä says he experienced eco-anxiety in his youth, similar to what many young people are experiencing today. Nevertheless, or perhaps because of it, he began studying pulp and paper technology in Otaniemi in Espoo, southern Finland.
Throughout Hämälä’s career, the forest industry has been studying ways to reduce its environmental impact. One important change occurred in the early 1970s when Ahlström built the world’s first pulp mill collecting odorous gases in Varkaus. Other companies soon followed suit.
In turn, the state of water protection began to improve when activated sludge plants, in which organic wastewater compounds were broken down by bacteria, began to be built in connection with the mills. The first was built in 1985 at the Äänekoski pulp mill, where the pulp mill and local residents had argued about water protection.
An activated sludge plant was also built at the Joutseno pulp mill, where Hämälä worked as a research engineer in the late 1980s. He points out that the activated sludge plant also demanded changes in the mill’s operations.
“The biological process running in the sludge plant requires the pulp mill’s chemical process to be run accurately. If there’s a surge of emissions, the biological process dies. The load coming from the mill must remain reasonable for the sludge plant.”
During his years in Joutseno, Hämälä met environmental activists for the first time.
The use of gaseous chlorine in pulp bleaching was problematic because the process produced dioxin, a known carcinogen. To solve this, forest companies developed methods that did not require chlorine. In Joutseno, chlorine was abandoned in 1991, and the company named its pulp Ekopine.
The environmental organisation Greenpeace considered this greenwashing. Four activists arrived by boat on the pulp mill’s shoreline carrying a one-metre-high green duck made of cloth – in Finnish, duck stands for a false claim, which is how Greenpeace characterised Ekopine’s environmental friendliness.
Hämälä was there to meet the activists. However, they climbed on top of the activated sludge plant’s waste treatment plant.
The waste treatment plant has a surface aeration unit, where electric motors rotate large rotors, which in turn blow air into the wastewater. The structure is open to allow air to flow. The force of the flow makes the wastewater swirl and splash on the plant’s structures. The water contains soap, which makes the structures slippery.
Hämälä watched in horror as the activists climbed on top of the facility, where huge rotors were spinning at high speed below them.
“I shouted and urged them to come down because they’d die if they slipped and fell.”
His words had no effect. After showing off their protest banner on top of the wastewater treatment plant for photos, the visitors came down at their own initiative. No one was harmed, but the incident still horrifies Hämälä.
“In retrospect, I should of course have hit the emergency switch to shut down the plant.”
Over the years, environmental organisations have become familiar to Hämälä. Sometimes, the parties’ views are very different, but at other times, surprisingly similar. Hämälä believes that the work of organisations is partly to be thanked for the forest industry reducing its emissions and changing its forest management practices.
“I’m afraid that in the absence of external pressure, there would’ve been no change.”
In this millennium, the main focus has been on safeguarding forest biodiversity and preparing for climate change. Forest certification systems were created as early as the 1990s. They originated from the need to protect rainforests from tropical plantation forests. They have since been adapted to northern forestry.
Plantation forestry resembles intensive agriculture: trees are cut down; the area is sprayed with poison; and a new tree generation is established before pests return. Nothing remains of the original ecology. In comparison, Finnish commercial forests are estimated to contain 70% of their original ecology.
During Hämälä’s time as President and CEO, the company has also sought to improve this figure. Two years ago, Metsä Group introduced the principles of regenerative forestry, which are built around the idea that forests can be used commercially while improving the state of forest nature.
The principles are applied in practice with the Metsä Group Plus forest management model. Under the model, the number of retention trees and high biodiversity stumps left in the forests exceeds the requirements of certificates, and the amount of decaying wood is increased. Wide buffer zones are left around waterbodies. Metsä Group’s owner-members decide themselves how they handle their forests, but as many as one in three wood trades last year were concluded under the Metsä Group Plus model.
During Hämälä’s term as President and CEO, which began in 2018, Metsä Group has made big investments and updated its production units to improve competitiveness. The company is in a strong condition, which is helpful given the current turmoil of the global economy. Nevertheless, Hämälä places the greatest emphasis on changes in forest management principles.
“I’ve contributed to the ecological development of forestry and the development supporting biodiversity. I consider it my greatest success.”
Regenerative forestry can be criticised for leaving valuable wood in the forest and for reducing the forest owner’s financial income. According to Hämälä, there has been little opposition. One reason is that economic reasons are what make the principles sound.
“Biodiversity improves the resilience of forests, which is needed in a changing climate. We can reduce the risk of forest damage, which has economic significance for forest owners.”
In Hämälä’s opinion, the future economic significance of forests will not be based solely on wood trade. The direction in which society is moving means that nature and carbon compensation will begin to generate income for forest owners.
“In the future, the economic value of forests will consist of both wood trade and other factors. Our challenge is to ensure that they are all balanced.”
Hämälä points out that if the forest is to absorb carbon in the long term, wood must sometimes be removed from it. If not, the carbon sink will stop. This must be taken into account when developing a carbon offsetting model. However, the natural value business cannot only mean that large areas are placed under permanent and strict protection. Suitable sites must also be found in commercial forests.
“Legislation must be developed in this direction. There are no signs of the need for wood decreasing in the world, but instead, people need products made of wood in their everyday lives.”
The forest industry has undergone a major change during this millennium, as the production of printing paper has shrunk to a fraction of what it was before. Some believe the forest industry made a mistake by continuing to focus on papers 30 years ago, even though digital communication was already making its entry.
Hämälä disagrees. He points out that printing papers were still a very profitable product in the 1990s because people read a lot of magazines and books.
“There was talk about digitalisation being the ruin of printing papers as early as the late 1970s. However, this didn’t happen until terminals were good enough to replace paper.”
Hämälä says that throughout its history, the forest industry has often had to change in response to the world changing and technology evolving. Some of the changes have been small, others big. For example, the production of electrotechnical papers ceased when paper was no longer used as insulation for cables. The sulphite pulping process was abandoned when the sulphate process, which produced stronger pulp, became mainstream.
The changes are slow because when a mill is built, it is expected to operate for at least 30 years. The mill’s product is designed to ensure sufficient demand across the life-cycle.
People sometimes ask why Metsä Group does not convert pulp further. Hämälä says the company invests in basic industry, guided by the raw material – wood – produced by the company’s owner-members.
“You don’t hear people ask Outokumpu why they make steel when they could be making washing machines.”
Metsä Group uses the most valuable part of trees, the butt end, to cut boards and turn plywood. Pulp is cooked from treetops and the woodchips resulting from sawing. Pulp is a basic raw material that can be used to make products such as paper, paperboard and textile fibre. Metsä Group itself converts around half the pulp it produces.
“For now, making pulp and converting it is the most sensible option for pulpwood use. Using wood directly as energy is not a valid option.”
Hämälä urges the company’s owner-members to look both far into the future and live in the present within the current framework.
“Look far ahead, but do the things you must do today.”
What do you plan to do when you retire?
After nearly 40 years at Metsä Group, Ilkka Hämälä will leave his position as the company’s President and CEO at the end of June, and Jussi Vanhanen will take his place as the new President and CEO. Hämälä will retire from the company in October. The gentle descent into retirement will be supported by three management positions that will continue into the first half of next year. Hämälä is a member of the Board of Metsä Group’s pulp and sawmill company Metsä Fibre; the chair of the supervisory board of Ilmarinen, a pension company; and chair of the board of Excellence Finland (the Finnish Quality Association). The position on the board of the Finnish National Theatre is a new and interesting opportunity for the theatre enthusiast.
In other respects, Hämälä truly intends to retire and is not planning any large-scale work projects.
“I’ve accumulated a fair number of working years. People also need to be free.”
text: Ilkka Luukkonen, photos Seppo Samuli