GreenFirst sells interest in private forest land for $49.25 million

Metsä Group’s innovation company Metsä Spring Ltd has made an equity investment in Innomost Ltd, a startup converting forest industry side streams into high-value bioactive products. The financing round totals approximately EUR 5 million, consisting of private investments and public financing from Business Finland and ELY Centre for Central Finland. Metsä Spring is participating in the round with Innovestor Technology Fund and other private investors. Innomost intends to produce valuable ingredients for the cosmetics and personal care industry, as well as for other industrial applications. Metsä Group has several mills, which may provide birch bark for the production. The company’s present product portfolio includes betulin, suberin, birch charcoal powder and birch bark powder. These ingredients can be used in different cosmetic product categories, including skincare, hair care, body care, decorative cosmetics and oral care. Especially betulin and suberin have also other potential industrial uses. The Finnish skincare brand Lumene has launched a couple of cleansing products with Innomost ingredients.

Georgia-Pacific announced significant investments, which total more than $500 million, at its Green Bay, Wisconsin, Broadway mill. The investments will greatly enhance the company's retail consumer tissue and towel business. Investments to the Green Bay mill include building a new paper machine using through-air-dried (TAD) technology, as well as adding associated converting equipment and infrastructure. Engineering and related work is beginning immediately, with startup of the new machine scheduled for the first half of 2024. Approximately 150 jobs will be created to operate the new papermaking complex, in addition to the mill's 850 current employees. The project will have as many as 500 construction and contract-related workers onsite at the mill, fluctuating with project timeline.

Stora Enso is investing EUR 14 million to build a granulation and packing plant for lignin, allowing easier packing and handling of lignin compared to powder and wet form. According to Stora Enso’s strategy, lignin is one of the key innovation areas for delivering growth on new applications, such as energy storage, binders and carbon fiber. The granulation plant will be located at Stora Enso’s Sunila Mill in Finland. Lignin is one of the main building blocks of a tree. Today, the lignin produced at Sunila Mill, Lineo™ by Stora Enso, is delivered as a dusty powder or as wet lignin. It is used, for example, as a phenol replacement in adhesives, as a bio-based natural binder replacing bitumen in asphalt, and in bioplastics. In the future, it can be used as a source of biocarbon in energy storage systems such as batteries for electric vehicles, as bio-based binders in plywood and as material for carbon fiber.