Canfor Announces Permanent Closure of Polar Sawmill and Suspension of Planned Reinvestment in Houston, BC

Paper Excellence Canada today announced it has once again been voted one of Canada’s 2022 Best 50 corporate citizens by Corporate Knights. Paper Excellence Canada is a diversified manufacturer of pulp and paper, including printing and writing, packaging, and specialty papers. The Best 50 award is judged using key performance indicators that relate to the organization’s raw resource use, emissions profile, social performance, safety performance, and percentage of revenue from clean sources. “We continue to be proud of our long association with Corporate Knights and their Best 50 program. Our sustainability report, Forward Focused: 2022 Sustainability Report, was just published last week and I encourage anyone interested in Paper Excellence Canada to read it,” said Graham Kissack, Vice President, Environment, Health & Safety and Corporate Communications.

The Kuura textile fibre is produced in Äänekoski, Finland, at Metsä Spring and Itochu’s jointly-owned demo plant. The joint demo phase project, which is built around the Äänekoski demo plant, aims to demonstrate the feasibility of a novel production process and textile fibre product, from both a technical and economic standpoint. This advanced direct dissolution method saw its beginnings in a collaboration with universities and research institutions over a decade ago. The demo phase began in late 2020 and it is estimated to last approximately two years. “We are testing a novel way of producing textile fibres from undried pulp, based on safer and more environmentally friendly chemicals. Our project has now reached a point where we can shift our focus more on investigating the fibre’s market potential and its suitability in different applications. Our partner ITOCHU, which has operated in the textile industry for over 100 years already, plays a key role in this. The launch of the Kuura brand supports ITOCHU work at the customer front,” says Niklas von Weymarn, CEO of Metsä Spring.

Holmen has signed an agreement to sell forest properties in north-west Jämtland, Sweden, for SEK 100 million. The sale is expected to be completed in January 2018. The Group’s earnings will be positively impacted by just over SEK 70 million in the first quarter of 2018 since the sale price exceeds the carrying amount according to IAS 41. With holdings of over 1 million hectares of productive forest land, Holmen is one of Sweden’s largest forest owners. “This forest land is located far from our production facilities and has significant other values than forestry. We intend to reinvest the sales proceeds in forest located closer to our own production facilities,” says Henrik Sjölund, President and CEO of Holmen. Click Read More below for additional information.