Holmen’s forestry is certified to the PEFC™ and FSC® standards (FSC_ID) and all the wood is fully traceable.
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Wood for sustainability and the climate
Wood is a naturally renewable and energy-efficient raw material. Holmen’s wood products come from sustainably managed forests and are refined in our chain-of-custody certified sawmills.
Wood builds a sustainable future
Wood is the only construction material that is 100% renewable. Since wood products have the capacity to store carbon dioxide for a long time, wooden buildings are significantly better for the climate than those built using fossil-based materials and processes. Producing steel and concrete creates considerable emissions of fossil carbon that affect the climate.
Using wood contributes to sustainable development. Replacing fossil materials with renewable structural components in wood creates climate benefits on many fronts. Emissions of greenhouse gases from manufacturing and using climate-negative materials are avoided, while increased use of products from the forest captures more carbon dioxide. In addition, the whole chain from manufacture to transport is much more energy-efficient and cost-effective.
- Using wood contributes to a sustainable society.
- Wood is a 100% renewable raw material.
- A wooden building will last an average of a hundred years.
- Wood construction is cost-effective, offering the sustainable housing of the future.
- Wood products are useful replacements for fossil materials such as steel and concrete. This substitution effect produces lower carbon dioxide emissions.
- Wood has good heat insulation properties, it is light and it stores carbon dioxide for a long time.
- Holmen plants two new trees for every tree harvested.
How we manage the forest
The growth of the forest and its value largely depend on how it is managed. Under Holmen’s active forest management, the volume of standing timber is built up over a period of 70–90 years, with a new growth cycle beginning after harvest. Many of the most important silviculture measures come in the years after harvest, when the soil is prepared and the land is reforested through planting or sowing. We clean and thin the forest in order to select trees with the best potential for further growth.
Around 10–30 years before the forest is ready for harvesting, it may be fertilised to further enhance growth. The annual harvest equates to 80 per cent of the forest’s growth, which means that the amount of wood in our forests increases year on year. For every tree we harvest, we plant at least two new ones. Our forestry is certified to the PEFC™ and FSC® standards and all the wood is fully traceable.
Please read more about our sustainable forest management.
We use all harvested raw material
Our wood products value chain runs all the way from tiny seed to finished timber building. Our high-tech sawmills use the entire log. Nothing goes to waste.
- The rough logs that make up approximately 50 per cent of the harvest go to sawmills, where they become building materials in the form of construction timber and joinery products.
- The thinner parts of the tree, approximately 45 per cent, and wood from thinning are ground or boiled down into pulp that then becomes paper or paperboard.
- The last 5 per cent, which is made up of branches, tops, bark and wood shavings, becomes renewable bioenergy.
