The incentive for the forest owners’ association, the Åland Forestry Management Association, to join the FSC came from its customers. The chips generated as by-products of sawmilling and originating from the forests of Åland are purchased almost exclusively by the Swedish forest industry company BillerudKorsnäs, which then turns the chips into cardboard for Tetra Pak in Sweden.
“BillerudKorsnäs is the largest purchaser of wood in Åland, and it was Tetra Pak that initially asked us to join the FSC,” says Mr. Torbjörn Björkman, Executive Director of the Åland Forestry Management Association. Sawmilling products from Åland are mainly exported to central Europe and the customers buying them have expressed no wishes concerning the FSC.
The association’s FSC project has been running for quite some time. Among other things, they have commissioned a study from the consulting company Indufor. In its report Indufor states that if the association decides to join the FSC, the will to do it must be created in Åland rather than somewhere else.
The main reason is that the project consumes money, especially in the early stages. For now, the association holds a PEFC certificate and no plans exist to change this.
In general, Indufor says that the project would be beneficial for the association, both as regards the image of its forestry and the amount of revenue. The expense would not be overwhelming, especially because the FSC standard would consider most of the members small-scale forest owners with less stringent requirements.
According to Björkman, money is a crucial issue here, if only in the sense that the forest owner should get a better price for FSC-certified chips, at least to begin with, in order to cover the certification expenses.
“We should get one or two euros more per cubic metre,” says Björkman. He goes on to say that the extra income for BillerudKorsnäs would be some Euro 200,000 per year.
“At least some of this should be channelled to the forest owners, but how much, is difficult to determine,” says Björkman.
At this stage, the project expenses are paid by Carl Rundberg, a forest industry company in Åland, as well as the union of forest owners in Åland. The two have decided to merge in 2016, to form a company called Ålands Skogsindustri.
The report by Indufor includes a long list of risks connected to the FSC project. However, Björkman does not consider them significant.
If the forestry management association decides to choose the FSC, Björkman does not believe that all members would participate, at least not in the first phase. “Our membership consists of close to 3,000 forest owners. Presumably only the largest ones, such as the regional government, the municipalities and the parishes would participate to begin with,” Björkman considers.
