Valmet reaches two significant milestones in its Climate Program

Valmet’s Climate Program – Forward to a carbon-neutral future – was launched in 2021. The program covers the entire value chain and includes four critical targets for the supply chain, Valmet’s operations, and the use of Valmet’s technologies by its customers for 2030. The year 2023 marks two significant milestones for the program.

Carbon-neutral production enabled for pulp and paper industry customers

Valmet has estimated that around 95% of its carbon footprint originates from the use phase of Valmet’s technologies by its customers. The program emphasizes this part of the value chain with two targets: to enable 100% carbon-neutral production for all pulp and paper industry customers and to improve the energy efficiency of Valmet’s current technology offering by 20% by 2030. Valmet has now reached the first one of these two targets.

“When it comes to the first target, we have had excellent progress as we have already reached our goal this year. We now offer carbon-neutral production opportunities for our pulp, paper, board, and tissue customers, with the precondition that the customer has bioenergy or carbon-neutral electricity in use. Carbon neutral production can be achieved by combining the best available technologies, optimizing mill design, and selecting the right automation, Industrial Internet, and service solutions,” says Janne Pynnönen, vice president of R&D at Valmet.

“Among the key innovations in reaching this final stage has been the development of electrical heating of paper and board coating machines, while for tissue machines, we have developed a fossil-free alternative for Yankee cylinder and Hood heating,” he continues.

Furthermore, many of Valmet’s customers’ chemical pulp mills using the company’s technologies are bioenergy self-sufficient, enabling carbon-neutral pulp production and even selling excess renewable energy.

“Lime kilns are typically the biggest source of fossil CO2 in pulp mills. Over the years, we have developed and delivered several fossil-free lime kilns based on biomass gasification or wood powder firing,” says Ari Saario, vice president of strategy and R&D, Pulp & Energy at Valmet.

Valmet has already long enabled carbon-neutral heat and power production for energy customers with biomass-based energy solutions.

100% carbon-neutral electricity purchases reached in Finland and Sweden

Valmet aims to reduce CO2 emissions by 80% by 2030 in its operations. The emissions from fuels, heating, and electricity have already been reduced by 50% since the baseline year 2019. A significant new milestone will be achieved by the end of 2023 as Valmet reaches 100% carbon-neutral electricity purchases in Finland and Sweden.

“The impact is significant, as these countries represent 60% of Valmet’s total electricity consumption and about 30% of the company’s total CO2 emissions from electricity usage. Through this, we are saving 32,000 tonnes of CO2 annually, equivalent to driving almost 223 million kilometers by car,” says Victoria Larsson, vice president, HSE at Valmet.