Metsä Group establishes an innovation company and plans to build a demo plant in Äänekoski, Finland for the production of textile fibres

Metsä Group has established a new innovation company, Metsä Spring Ltd. The company will, together with partner organisations, invest in new endeavours with the target to identify and develop new business opportunities in sustainable forest-based bioeconomy and circular economy. Niklas von Weymarn has been appointed CEO of the company. He transfers to Metsä Spring from the position of VP, Research in Metsä Fibre, also part of Metsä Group. The office of Metsä Spring is in the heart of the internationally-acknowledged Otaniemi innovation campus in Espoo, Finland. The establishment of the new innovation company does not affect the current research and development activities of Metsä Group’s current business areas.

”With the establishment of Metsä Spring, we want to create a new dimension to Metsä Group’s innovation activities and thereby participate more actively in the development of new business concepts in forest-based bioeconomy and circular economy. A large share of new ideas are generated outside our company and the new business concepts are increasingly developed in novel partnerships. The new innovation company enables Metsä Group to better take part in this activity,” says Metsä Group’s President and CEO and Metsä Spring’s Chairman of the Board Ilkka Hämälä.

The first concept to be included into Metsä Spring’s portfolio is the new textile fibre production method developed by Metsä Fibre. Now Metsä Spring is planning a greenfield demo plant with the capacity of about 500 tonnes of staple fibre per year. The planning is based on the idea that the demo plant will be integrated to Metsä Group’s bioproduct mill in Äänekoski. The planning work is done by an international team and the investment decision is expected by the end of this year.

The current ways to produce textile fibres are typically burdened by a notable environmental footprint and the textile market is thus seeking new, more sustainable alternatives. The environmentally-friendly production method developed by Metsä Group is based on direct dissolution using novel compounds for the pulp dissolution stage. In contrary to the methods used commercially today, Metsä Group’s method relies on wet paper-grade pulp as the raw material.

“It is important to develop new bioproducts that expand the current product portfolio of the forest industry. Textile fibre is a very potential product and a natural first project for Metsä Spring. The company wants to be an active and respected player in developing new business concepts for various stages of the forest-based value chains,” says CEO Niklas von Weymarn.
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