SUSTAINABILITY REPORT BUSINESS OPERATIONS AND VALUE CREATION Our R&D aims for recyclability and resource efficiency FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENT GOVERNANCE
Promoting the goals of the circular economy drives the development of packaging materials throughout the packaging sector’s value chain. The requirements for packages are increasing, and cooperation among all the value chain operators is important.
We continue to focus on lightweighting of paperboard and developing recyclable protective barrier coatings for use in food packaging. Our competence in lightweighting of paperboards plays a key role in the pre-engineering of the Kaskinen folding boxboard mill, launched in 2022, which builds on fossil free production and significantly lower consumption of wood, energy and water per tonne of folding boxboard produced, compared to current produc- tion units. We aim for world-class resource efficiency and a product that enables the reduction of the carbon footprint. We are developing the resource efficiency of all our mills and make use of artificial intelligence. For example, at the Äänekoski paperboard mill, we can now locate the reason for process disrup- tions much faster thanks to new AI technology. The technology analyses the underlying causes of visual defects detected by AI based machine vision and looks for deviations among the 10,000 variables measured at the mill, also accounting for process delays. This helps target the right corrective measures more quickly, reducing the time lost due to disruptions. In the biobarrier programme launched in 2021, we continued to study new alternative products for reducing plastic. Several
Metsä Board has been an active participant in the 4evergreen alliance, covering the entire packaging value chain, since its establishment. The goal of 4evergreen is to make all fibre-based packaging recyclable by 2025 and raise the recycling rate in the EU from the current 82% to 90% by 2030. In 2022, 4evergreen published packaging design guidelines, as well as instructions for collecting and sorting fibre-based packaging and for assessing the recyclability of packaging. They support the recycling of fibre- based packaging and promote the competitiveness of fibre-based packaging against other packaging materials.
Aiming for world-class resource efficiency and a reduced carbon footprint
Ensuring and developing the recyclability and compostability of paperboards is one of the key goals of our product development process. In the fibre-based packaging material circular economy, our task is to provide the market with premium fresh fibre paperboards as resource-efficiently as possible, help replace fos- sil-based materials and reduce the carbon footprint of packaging.
Large-scale material savings
While delicious gourmet cookies have made Crumbl Cookies the fastest-growing cookie company in the United States, its signature pink boxes have helped establish the firm as a social media sensation. Founded five years ago, Crumbl Cookies now has more than 600 U.S. loca- tions, using hundreds of thousands of cookie boxes per week. By switching to Metsä Board’s lightweight dispersion barrier board, Crumbl was able to to reduce the weight of the package by 32% and reduce its carbon footprint by more than 50%.
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