Image: Metsä Group

 

During 2026, Metsä Group will establish its own PEFC group certification scheme which Metsäliitto Cooperative’s bonus members and contract customers can join to have their forests certified.

 

“By establishing this new group, we want to strengthen the position and profile of PEFC certification, bear even more responsibility for compliance with PEFC certification, and thus ensure the continued availability of PEFC-certified wood to our industrial customers,” says Juha Jumppanen, Metsä Group’s EVP, Wood Supply and Forest Services.

 

“Another reason for setting up our own PEFC group is that, in our view, the current regional system includes individual actors who are insufficiently committed to complying with the certification requirements and to carrying out the rectifications of shortcomings required of them. We want to keep things in our own hands.”

 

Metsä Group is one of the largest forest industry operators in Finland, therefore the Group considers it especially important that its operations are based on sustainable forest management and use. 

 

Retailers and end-users of forest industry products are also increasingly interested in the origin of the wood used in the products, as well as in sustainable forest use and the attention paid to biodiversity in forest management.

 

Forest certification is an internationally recognised way to demonstrate that ecological, economic and social sustainability is taken into account in forest management and forestry work. It is exceptional in international comparison that the majority of Finland’s commercial forests are certified. 

 

The Finnish PEFC plays a key role in setting requirements for forestry practices that go beyond legal standards. Introduced in 2000, PEFC certification has been updated several times since, supporting a significant shift towards forests with more biodiversity and vitality, cleaner water bodies, and better working conditions, for example.

 

Metsä Group’s bonus members and contract customers will see this reform in connection with wood trading in 2026, when the PEFC criteria will be highlighted even more strongly than before, and joining Metsä Group’s new group certification scheme will be agreed.

 

“We consider it important that our owner-members understand the benefits of PEFC certification,” Jumppanen continues.

 

In addition to its own PEFC group, Metsä Group offers its contract customers the opportunity to join another prevailing forest certification system, i.e. FSC®, through group certification. 

 

The same forest estate can join both certification systems. For those who want an even higher level of nature management, there is also the Metsä Group Plus management model applicable to each wood trade. Under this model, even more retention trees and biodiversity stumps are left in the forest than under established current practice, for example.

 

Compared with uncertified wood, Metsä Group pays an additional price for wood purchased from certified forests. A considerably higher price is paid for FSC-certified wood than for PEFC-certified wood. In addition to the payment for certification, an additional bonus is paid for each hectare where the Metsä Group Plus forest management model is used.

 

Metsä Forest provides and develops services for the members of Metsä Group’s parent company, Metsäliitto Cooperative. The company procures all the wood used by Metsä Group’s production units. The cooperative consists of more than 90,000 forest owners, who own about half of Finland’s privately owned forests. 

 

In 2024, Metsä Forest sales totalled EUR 2.4 billion, and we have around 700 employees. The sales of the whole Metsä Group were EUR 5,7 billion.