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Positioned at the heart of the circular bioeconomy, Stora Enso strives to improve resource efficiency – to make more with less. This benefits our business, as well as the environment and society.
Among the global megatrends impacting societies, markets, and businesses, climate change is one of the greatest challenge of our time. This means that consumers, legislators, companies, and financial institutes have an increasing focus on raw materials, CO2 emissions, circularity, and waste reduction. Moreover, governments around the world are increasingly regulating the use of fossil-based materials, such as plastics.
In 2022, the utilisation rate for residuals and by-products across the group was 99%, including both internal and external use.
Water
The objective of our KPIs on total water withdrawal and process water discharges is to drive a downward trend from our 2016 baselines of 57 m3 and 27 m3 per saleable tonne, respectively. In 2022, our total water withdrawal was 61 m3 per saleable tonne and our process water discharges amounted to 31 m3 per saleable tonne. In 2022, Stora Enso committed to a new water performance target to reduce specific process water discharges per saleable tonne by 17% by 2030 from the 2019 baseline year. The target for decreasing trend for the total water withdrawal remains, and extensive work involving workshops in the mills were executed during 2022 to identify water reduction actions.
Energy
Most of Stora Enso’s production processes are energy-intensive, and the Group’s energy efficiency target has been to achieve at least 0.8% annual energy savings by 2030. As of 2023, the annual target increases to -1.1%. In 2022, the projected annual energy savings were -1.1%.
Materials
The environmental work at our mills, including water and energy management and resource efficiency, is supported by third-party-certified environmental management systems. All Stora Enso’s sawmills, corrugated packaging units, and board, pulp and paper mills are certified to the ISO 14001 environmental management system. By the end of 2022, 97% of the Group’s energy consumption was certified to the ISO 50001 energy management system standard (94% in 2021).
Our production processes generate various residuals and wastes, including ash, black liquor, sawdust, bark, and wastewater treatment sludge. Many of these materials are used in our internal bioenergy generation and pulp production, or supplied to our partners for uses such as agriculture, and land or road construction.
Water
Production at Stora Enso’s board, pulp and paper units requires large amounts of water. The units withdraw process and cooling water almost entirely from surface waters. In 2022, 99.9% of total water withdrawal was from surface water, less than 0.1% from municipal or groundwater sources. After use, the process water is cleaned in treatment plants before discharging it back into the local environment. Only around 4% of water is consumed in production processes while almost 96% is recycled back into the environment. Process water is purified in treatment plants and then discharged, whereas cooling and other non-process water can be released without treatment in most cases.
Energy
Board, pulp and paper production processes are the most energy intensive phases in Stora Enso’s value chain which makes it essential for the units to have access to reliable and sustainable energy supply at a reasonable cost. Stora Enso’s energy supply is managed under long-term contracts, direct market access through energy exchanges, combined heat and power production, and shareholdings in power generation companies such as Pohjolan Voima Oyj and Teollisuuden Voima Oyj in Finland.
Stora Enso is committed to continuous improvements in energy efficiency and energy self-sufficiency. We always assess the opportunities to use biomass fuels and other low-carbon options when making energy investments. Our central energy efficiency investment fund is a cornerstone of our work.
