Forests cover roughly 75% of Finland’s land area. The volume of wood in Finland’s forests has increased by approximately 70%, or around a billion cubic meters, in over 50 years. Applied sustainable forest management practices ensure that different aspects of sustainability are considered and the use does not exceed the rate of growth.
In 2022, Metsä Group’s wood procurement totalled 34 million cubic meters. Out of this, 25.5 million m³ was used by Metsä Group's own mills. About 85% of the wood was procured from Finland, 1% from Russia, 8% from Sweden and 6% from the Baltic countries. Metsä Group applies the same sustainable forest management practices in all wood procurement areas. Metsä Group stopped wood supply from Russia on 3 March 2022.
Forest certification is proof of sustainable origin of wood
The most significant tools to ensure sustainable forest management and a traceable origin of wood are the certification schemes PEFC (PEFC/02-31 03) and FSC® (FSC-C014476). Forest certification takes into account social, ecological and economical aspects in forest management operations and sets a wide range of sustainability requirements, from safety at work to considering nature values and future growth of the forest. By setting requirements that assure a certain level of performance, irrespective of country, forest certification is a valuable tool to increase sustainability.
88% of the wood Metsä Group used was certified whereas globally only about 10% of forests are certified. By following FSC and PEFC chain of custody certification requirements, Metsä Group is not only sourcing wood mainly from certified forests, but also choosing responsible partners and suppliers and following and reporting certified amounts and origin information correctly throughout the chain. In addition, we also make sure that all the non-certified materials follow and exceed requirements, for example, the legal requirements in sustainability related issues.
Metsä Group promotes forest certification systems. We believe there is still a great potential through additional hectares of forests that could be managed more sustainably and development of the schemes which would have an effect on a wider scale. Metsä Group is also an active member of PEFC and FSC, both at national and international levels.