At the end of last year, interested experts were able to see the company's ambitious goals for themselves in wintry Finland, both at the Metsä Board headquarters in Helsinki and in Kyröskoski near Tampere, where the biopower company Metsä Board Kyro started production in 2012.
Ari Kiviranta, Manager of Production and Technology at Metsä Group in Helsinki, explained the Group's key figures and, above all, the great commitment of all employees to contribute to the fulfilment of the extraordinarily ambitious goals and future strategies. He explained that the Group achieved a total turnover of EUR 5 billion in 2014, employs more than 10,000 people and is represented in almost 30 countries.
The parent company, Metsäliitto Cooperative, which is owned by around 22,000 Finnish forest owners, is an advocate for the forestry industry with all its companies representing the entire value chain. Comprehensive sustainability and ethical practices a. This leitmotif could also be followed in the further course of the visit, starting with the management of the forests and the manufacturing processes through to the products, which must meet the requirements of the highest quality, low material usage and good recyclability as well as comply with all national and international regulations.
Product range geared towards global megatrends
Global trends such as the conservation of natural resources, the reduction of CO2 emissions and the reduction of the carbon footprint require the economical use of raw materials in the production of packaging. Other influences, such as the rising number of single-person households, the increase in online shopping and the consumption of food on the go, are increasing the total amount of packaging and require new solutions. Added to this are high demands on the purity of medical and food packaging and the increased importance of marketing. Smaller, individualised runs and short changeover times must be taken into account.
The Metsä Group responded from 2006 onwards with a Total remodelling of its companies to these trends. From 2007 to 2013, the Group underwent numerous restructuring measures and focused on the production of white virgin fibre and folding boxboard, enabling it to take the lead for this range in Europe in 2015. The fact that the entire value chain is part of the Group makes it possible to offer high-quality products, from the care of renewable raw materials and the selection of wood by the forestry services, to sophisticated production expertise that is standardised in all plants, combined with customer focus and innovation.
In addition to wood products, the portfolio focuses on pulp, virgin fibre board, wallpaper, tissue and cooking papers as well as a range of board and liner developed for different purposes, offering high strength and durability, consistent quality in terms of thickness, moisture content, coating weight, whiteness, basis weight and excellent printing properties. The use of these products is a guarantee of safety, because when using them a Complete traceability possible and No additional barrier material necessary.
From the raw material wood to cardboard
86 per cent of Finland consists of forest. During a stopover on the journey to the plant in Kyröskoski, the visitors had the opportunity to see for themselves that the Metsä Group's products are based on sustainable forestry. Firstly, this means that forest growth exceeds the amount of wood removed for use, as four cuttings are planted for every tree harvested. Secondly, the origin of the wood is now 100 per cent traceable and comes from certified sources.
Metsä promotes the Forest certification and thus contributes to ensuring biodiversity. Scheduled, large-scale felling is carried out using state-of-the-art technology. The different components of a tree are utilised efficiently. Thick trunks go to sawmills, thinner ones are used as wood chips for further processing into pulp and the wood waste is used to produce bioenergy, which has made it possible to reduce CO2 emissions by 36 per cent within five years. In total, 85 per cent of renewable energy in Finland is currently generated from wood.
After spending time in the forest, the group reached the Metsä Board Kyro plant, which has been in production since 2012 following an investment of 50 million euros. Like the other companies in the group, it is operated in an area rich in water. The water is reused several times in the processes and treated so carefully that it can be returned to the natural watercourses. Kyro is also a prime example of bioenergy production. The tower of the Biopower plant can be seen from afar. The energy self-sufficiency of the Metsä pulp mills is 150 per cent. They are one of the largest producers of renewable energy in Finland. In addition to self-consumption, bioenergy is supplied to local communities in the form of district heating and to the grid in the form of electricity.
„The plant with a capacity of 60 MW of heat and 12 MW of electricity has reduced the carbon footprint of our products by more than half and it is much more effective to use local, renewable resources than fossil gas from Russia,“ explains Timo Tuomisto, the Mill Manager of Kyro, on a tour of the plant.
At least as impressive as the Biopower plant are the ten metre wide and 200 metre long cartonboard machines. On these machines, 240 employees produce 190,000 tonnes of folding boxboard (Avanta Prima and Carta Elega) and 105,000 tonnes of white topliner (CartaSelecta) and wallpaper (Cresta) per year from 215,000 tonnes of pulp supplied by other Metsä Group partners. In each section, an important work step is carried out to achieve product properties such as low weight, rigidity and whiteness.
Visions of the future
Based on the aforementioned megatrends, the focus of the corporate strategy is on the production of folding cartons and liners made from virgin fibres in order to provide customers with consumer goods, shelf-ready packaging and takeaway products made from virgin fibres. High resource efficiency and product safety as Ari Kiviranta explained at the beginning of the trip. The 170 million euro remodelling of the Swedish site in Husum is currently serving this goal.
The company has already installed a new BM1 folding boxboard machine with an annual capacity of 400,000 tonnes. At the same time, the PM6 and PM7 paper machines, which previously produced around 500,000 tonnes a year, were shut down. The PM8 paper machine has also already been converted and is now used to produce white virgin fibre liner in rolls under the name BM2. However, this product is due to be phased out in 2017.
[infotext icon] Objectives of the Metsä Group- Certification of the wood used to over 80% (2014 - 84%)
- Traceability of the raw material 100% (achieved in 2015)
- Improvement in energy efficiency from 2009 to 2020 by 10% (2014 - 6%)
- Reduction of CO2 emissions from 2009 to 2020 by 30% per tonne (2014 - 36%)
- Reduction in water consumption per tonne by 17% (2014 - 11%)
- Reduction in sickness absence to less than 3% (2014 - 4%)
- Downtime reduced by 10% (2014 - already reduced by 15%)[/infotext]
From 2018, the production of 300,000 tonnes of kraftliner and 750,000 tonnes of chemical pulp per year is planned in Husum. The measures are sufficient to ensure continued profitable growth in the coming years and will enable the optimisation of production at the company's Finnish sites. The total availability of high-quality cardboard packaging is to be increased from 1.4 to over 2 million tonnes per year by 2018. A further EUR 38 million will be invested in an extrusion coating line in Husum, which will have an annual capacity of around 100,000 tonnes at the beginning of 2017 and will be used to coat part of the new production of folding boxboard for the food industry.
Research and development in the field of other barrier coatings is also being driven forward. Litho coating is another focal point in the finishing of Metsä products. It combines high-quality graphics with the option of Short runs, in order to maximise the Marketing success of the brand owner with optimum flexibility for the packaging manufacturer.
