What makes wood a sustainable feedstock?

As trees grow they absorb carbondioxide from the air. Hence forests are agiant natural carbon storage and often also a significant carbon sink. The high carbon content makes wood a true alternative to fossil feedstocks for producing performance chemicals like UPM BioMotion™ RFF. Wood is a renewable rawmaterial – when sustainability managed, the forest stock continues growing, even though part of the wood is removed. In addition, it is ensured that forest is continually renewed.

The growing demand for renewable, sustainable materials creates a powerful incentivefor forest owners and companies to ensure the continuous growth of forests through sustainable forestry practices. Nearly one-third of the total area of Germany is forest land, and over the last four decades, the forest area has increased.

How is responsibility ensured in wood sourcing?

UPM’s Central European Wood Sourcing ensures that all wood used in the biorefinery is responsibly sourced with a fully transparent supply chain avoiding any deforestration. The wood used to produce UPM BioMotion™ RFF comes exclusively from sustainability managed forest and it is either FSC™ or PEFC certified*. It is fully traceable, controlled, and covered by a verified third-party chain of custody. Regional sourcing of wood will enable local value creation and ensure compliance with high social and environmental standards.

We will utilize industrial beechwood, and sawmill side streams. Using these wood streams increases circularity and assures that nothing that can be used goes to waste.

*FSC-C158663, PEFC/04-31-3324

Why beech wood?

UPM’s biochemical refinery feedstock in Leuna, Germany, is currently beech wood. Beech trees are native to Germany, and their share in German forests is increasing. Broadleaves trees such as beech improve forest growth and yield and increase the diversity of forests. This provides a stable source of wood raw material to fulfil the demand of the biochemical refinery in the long term.

Due to limited end-use options minority of all harvested industrial beechwood is used in any material applications. Typically it is used for thermal energy generation. Thus, developing new industrial applications based on beech wood supports climate-adaptive forest management goals.