Metsä Group, a leading Finnish company in the forest industry, has launched a biodiversity project that envisions advancing innovative corporate responsibility practices, aside from the most pressing issues of habitat restoration.
With this project, the company’s biodiversity goals are intertwined with its main objectives through ‘business-integrated solutions’. This means that sustainability is embedded in the company’s operations, rather than being a side initiative.The Kemi’s industrial area is the first pilot for the company’s endevour to restore habitats, commenced in June 2024. If proven successful, it will be expanded to other Metsä Group’s site across seven countries.
Environmental group Villi Vyöhyke is running experimental trials in the mill area: “We have more than 250 different ecological restoration experiments in Finland, many of which focus on innovative solutions for promoting biodiversity in forested and open areas,” said Jere Nieminen, environmental policy researcher at Villi Vyöhyke Ry.
One of the main challanges has been the collection of local seeds, as they are not easily sold on the market. Nieminen and his colleague had to personally peel seeds out off plants within 20 kilometers of the restoration site, as rules are quite strict: “We have collected more than 200 species,” he told while showing pictures of his colleagues planting the different species.Metsä Group has restored 20 hectares of open habitat since the launch of the project last June.