Working together for sustainable sourcing in Europe

Since we don’t own forestland in Europe, we work closely with our partners to uphold our responsible sourcing practices and encourage sustainable forestry. Our wood sourcing partners are Sapin in Belgium, proNARO in Germany, Papierholz in Austria and Metsä Forest in Finland. Market Pulp is also sourced from external suppliers based in Europe and the Americas. 

Certified woodfibre from a known source 

We work with our suppliers to source woodfibre from well-managed, certified forests. In 2019, 77% of the woodfibre we used in Europe came from certified sources. Our suppliers provide the specific certification claims on each shipment invoice, and also provide us with regular reports on where wood comes from.  

Together this gives us the necessary insights on our sourcing. We produce wood origin declarations for each mill to summarise and inform our customers on the wood origin.  

Buying local  

Our wood sourcing partners buy wood mainly from local sources because it makes both ecological and economic sense. This typically includes non-industrial private forests, municipalities and state-owned forests. Wood chips, a by-product from sawmilling, are purchased from sawmills. The primary tree species we use in our European operations include spruce and pine (softwoods) and beech, poplar, aspen and eucalyptus (hardwoods). 

Working together for sustainable forestry 

Our sourcing partners give us direct access and insight to forestry issues as they emerge. One such issue is the outbreak of the spruce bark beetle (Ips typographus) in Europe, which is having profound impacts on forest ecosystems. Years of drought and high seasonal temperatures have depleted the defence mechanism of spruce trees to these pests. The thriving beetle population is attacking stressed and dying trees and increasingly healthy ones too.  

Forest managers are aggressively responding throughout the region to remove infected trees and work to control the outbreak. We are working with our sourcing partners to support these efforts and to understand further our role in support of building more resilience in forest ecosystems and regional economies.