The high quality of our sawn timber starts in the forest. We maintain close cooperation with UPM Forest and Wood Sourcing and we also regularly invite forest owners to get acquainted with our sawmills and to discuss our customers' quality requirements.
"UPM Forest's forest account managers who are buying wood, knows our products' quality requirements and can identify the timber which is best for us. Through them the information is transmitted to forest owners," says Sami Kotivuori the director of Korkeakoski sawmill. "We are happy to show the forest owners our sawmill and to tell them about our products and our own customers' requirements. These discussions make the importance of forest management and quality of timber very apparent."
In November, we organized an event for the forest owners of the Central Finland at the Korkeakoski sawmill, where an active group of forest owners were introduced to the sawmill and its products and their end uses. The theme of the visit was "Where are my logs travelling to in the world"?
The forest owners in the neighboring area were interested in what happens to the sturdy pine logs harvested from their forests, inside the sawmill gates. A lively discussion arose especially about the end-uses of sawn timber and customers' responsibility requirements, such as the importance of certification for the end-users.
Despite the rainy weather, the sawmill tour started with enthusiasm and interest and for some of the forest owners the visit was the first time in the sawmill. The production efficiency and automation level of sawmill were a surprise for many, which aroused a lot of questions and active discussion. Also, in the log sorting, it was wondered how much information about log can be obtained by x-ray measurement.
Pine from the area's forest owners can be found in British homes' window frames, doors and furniture as well as in structures and furniture of summer houses built at Finnish lakefronts.
To run our sawmills we need about three million cubic meters of wood annually, over half of which is bought from private forest owners. 60% of Finland's 26.2 million hectares forest is owned by private individuals.
UPM is a major forest owner in Finland with 640 000 hectares of forest. About 10% of UPM's mills' annual wood consumption comes from the company's forests. We take care of the company's forests in according to the principles of sustainable forest management, complying with the government regulations and certification criteria. Over and above this, we are able to develop new methods of responsible forestry in our private forests and we offer this expertise to the private forest owners, an indication of our expertise is that there are about one million hectares of private forests in our care.
Read more about Finnish forestry industry at www.forest.fi
Read more:
Forest certificates tell about the sustainable origin of wood