Metsä Board Sustainability Review 2023

Regenerative forestry goes beyond conventional sustainability measures

Metsä Board’s products are manufactured from pure, fresh wood fibre sourced from sustainably managed Northern European forests. The aim is to manage these forest areas even better.

According to Timo Lehesvirta , Metsä Group’s Leading Nature Expert, adopting regenerative forestry principles involves a systemic change, which will enable the economy and biodiversity to grow and strengthen simultaneously. “Historically, economic systems have created wellbeing at nature’s expense. In many forms of land use, production is still based on first erasing the original forest ecosystem. Finnish forestry, and especially regenerative forestry, is about production processes that verifiably do not harm the environment,” Lehesvirta says. To be able to verify the positive change is vital. Metsä Group jointly monitors the development of the state of forest nature with research institutions in the field. Our goal is to verifiably measure and follow-up the strengthening of forest biodiversity by 2030. “Various ideologies and approaches are prominent in public forest discussion, so we want to ensure that the impact of our actions can be measured using scientific methods. Working with our external stakeholders, we aim to develop verified measurements that demonstrate environmental impact across a product’s value chain, from forests to consumers”, Lehesvirta adds. Regenerative forestry enables economy and biodiversity to strengthen simultaneously

In our Environmental policy, we commit to obtaining wood raw material from sustainable forest sources and to paying attention to the economic, social and environmental aspects of forest management and wood supply. To develop this even further, Metsä Group, which is responsible for our wood supply, adopted ambitious regenerative forestry principles in the spring of 2023. The goal of the regenerative forestry principles is to strengthen biodiversity while using forests, and to ensure that forests transfer in an even more vibrant and diverse condition from one generation and owner to the next. Greater diversity also makes forests more resilient to climate change. In addition, regenerative forestry supports carbon sinks for mitigating climate change while simultaneously supporting the overall forest ecosystem, including aspects such as timber, berry and mushroom growth, pollinators and forests’ health benefits on people. The key practices of regenerative forestry include diversifying the tree species and the structure of forests, as well as increasing

the amount of decaying wood in the forests. With these practices we can improve the habitats of around 10,000 species living in commercial forests. In Metsä Group’s regenerative forestry principles, forest management and use is based on the most common native tree species in the area. There are approximately 30 native tree species in Finland, of which we process only four industrially. During forest operations, other tree species are left to grow and boost biodiversity in the forest. Protective thickets, i.e. dense stands of trees and bushes, are left to diversify the structure of forests and provide hiding places for animals. To increase the amount of decaying wood, retention trees and two-to-five-metre high biodiversity stumps are left standing on the harvested sites. All these measures are important for preserving forest biodiversity.

Verifying positive change is a key element of regenerative forestry principles.

The many levels of sustainable forest management in Northern forestry

Legislation (EU and national level)

National and EU level legislation set the

Metsä Group Plus service takes forest management to a new level

Best practices for sustainable forest management (Finland)

foundation for measures to advance biodiversity and sustainable use of forests.

than is required by today’s forest certification standards. The measures are agreed jointly with forest owners in connection with forest management services and wood trade. The potential of the Metsä Group Plus programme is consider- able, as the members of Metsäliitto Cooperative own about half of Finland’s private forests. Read more about our wood procurement and traceability on page 34 and topical forest-related regulations on pages 36–37.

In June 2023, Metsä Group launched the Metsä Group Plus ser- vice as part of its regenerative forestry principles. Metsä Group Plus is a forest management model that follows the principles of regenerative forestry and is offered to the owner-members of Metsäliitto Cooperative, Metsä Group’s parent company. The model’s measures for supporting and improving forest biodiversity are more comprehensive than those of current standard practices based on legislation and forest certification. For example, the number of retention trees and high biodiversity stumps left in the forest is higher in the Metsä Group Plus service

Forest certification (PEFC, FSC®)

This is complemented with further measures

Metsä Group’s own actions: • Ecological sustainability programme • Funding programme for nature projects • Regenerative forestry strategy • Metsä Group Plus service

based on best practices, forest certifications, and company-specific voluntary biodiversity actions.

Read more about these topics in the Sustainability Statement 2023.

METSÄ BOARD SUSTAINABILITY REVIEW 2023