Think of a forest and what do you see?
A place to relax and to forage, to seek shade on a hot day, to take the kids to play? Perhaps you see an essential eco system, a haven for biodiversity, the lungs of the planet?
We see all this and more. The forest is also the answer to a more sustainable future. When nurtured with care, working forests hold the key for renewable, recyclable products that will help us move to a fossil-free, more circular future.
It’s what we call the Sustainable Forestry initiative by Södra
Family forestry helps grow biodiversity
The 52,000 family foresters that make up the Södra group know all too well that we must cherish our forests. Many of them are sixth or seventh-generation forest owners. They see themselves as custodians of their forest for the future: having inherited their estates, they will pass them on to the next generation, and the next.
That’s why for every tree our members harvest, they plant three more in its place. Pulp is one of the many sustainable products we make from a tree (pulp is mainly made from part of the trunk, thinning wood and sawmill chips). The thicker part of the trunk of a tree goes to a sawmill to make sawn timber products, the bark for green energy, the rest of the tree can become anything from biofuels to turpentine. We even make pulp for textiles to help the fashion industry become greener. Nothing from the tree goes to waste.
Meet Erik Carlsson: family forester
Erik Carlsson is a Södra member. He is already certified, but the Nature Conservation Premium rewards him for setting aside even more of his land for conservation than the certification systems require. It’s just one example of how we balance sustainability and economics, growing the forests for the future.
Rooted in the forest, we grow the future
Södra was founded in 1938 on the idea that we are stronger together. We are now the largest forest-owner association in Sweden, with more than 50,000 family forest owners as members and a worldleading industry that processes forest raw material into renewable products.
