Metsä Board Sustainability Report 2022

Sustainable products

E S G

We aim for fully fossil free products and use natural resources as efficiently as possible in accordance with the principles of the circular economy. This reduces the climate and environmental footprints of our products.

Indicators and progress

We aim to use solely fossil free raw materials and packaging materials by the end of 2030.

In 2022, 99.3% (99.2) of our raw materi- als and product packaging materials per dry tonne were fossil free.

FOSSIL FREE RAW MATERIALS %

100

90

80

70

18 19 20 21 22 TARGET 2030

Our operations

Fossil free products Our main raw material, wood fibre, accounts for 93% of all our raw materials per dry tonne. In our paperboards, we also use raw materials based on natural minerals such as calcium carbonate, fossil oil-based materials such as latex, and especially in food service packaging also PE coating. To replace fossil oil-based materials, we are continuing to develop systematic monitoring of the fossil share of all our raw materials, based on the data provided by our suppliers. We actively monitor the needs of our customers and the global markets and have conducted experiments and test runs of packaging materials using raw materials that can replace paperboard latexes and coatings currently in use. Environmental impacts of products The environmental impact of our products arises throughout their life cycle, including the production and procurement of raw materi- als, our own production processes, transports, further processing, and disposal after use. In the assessments of the environmental impact of our paperboards, we use life cycle analyses that help our

customers reduce the environmental impacts of their packaging through appropriate materials choices and packaging solutions. As well as this, the life cycle analyses help us further improve our products’ environmental performance. We always carry out our products’ life cycle analyses and the comparisons between different materials in accordance with the ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 standards. Our calculations account for the environmental impact attributable to the production of raw materials and energy, sourcing and transports as well as our own production. In 2022, we published our first environmental product declaration (EPD), verified by an external party, which provides a transparent and comparable report of the life cycle analysis results of our paperboard product. The aspects most relevant in terms of paperboard packaging are the energy used in its production and the light weight of the paperboard itself. As we shift to the use of 100% fossil free energy in our paperboard production, the carbon footprint of our products will become even smaller. For example, according to an independent study, the climate impact of a paperboard box for cherry tomatoes is more than 80% smaller than that of a box made from recycled plastic (Natural Resources Institute Finland).

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