Metsä Group transports tissue paper with biofuels in Scandinavia

Photo: Metsä Group

Metsä Group announced Nov. 25 that its tissue-paper business is taking an important step towards more sustainable transportation of its tissue products by arranging part of its outbound shipment to customers in Scandinavia with fossil-free fuels.

This shift is part of the company’s strategic lean supply-chain program aiming for efficient and lean value proposition to local markets.

Approximately 40 percent of Metsä Tissue Scandinavia’s outbound transports are now powered by hydrotreated vegetable oil or biodiesel.

These biofuel transports represent a vast majority of the outbound transports that Metsä Tissue organizes by itself in the region and the company’s short-term target is to extend the biofuel coverage of its shipments to 100 percent.

In addition, for customers that organize their own transports are encouraged to collect their tissue products from Metsä Tissue’s Swedish mills using fossil-free fuels.

“By setting high standards for our transportation partners and choosing renewable fuels such as HVO, we can reduce our emissions by up to 90 percent per truck transport,” said Daniel Stenberg, Metsä Tissue Scandinavia’s vice president of supply chains.

“This is an important step in our strategy and in reaching our ambitious 2030 sustainability targets,” Stenberg added. “It also demonstrates well our commitment to more responsible future in our transports—for us and for our customers.”

In addition, the increased localized production with the expansion and modernization of Metsä Tissue’s Mariestad mill will further reduce transportation emissions per transported metric ton.

Today, more than 85 percent of the company’s deliveries are made within a 500-kilometer radius of the mills and the increase in local capacity will provide even more local products with shorter transport distances.

Combined with the target to transition to 100 percent fossil-free fuels, the company said it continues to strengthen its efforts in achieving more sustainable transportation.