Tetra Pak supports Chinese, Swedish tree farms

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By Liu Jie (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-11-09 07:46

What Korsnas in northern Sweden and Yong'an in southern China's Fujian province have in common is tree farms seeking certification from the international Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

Tetra Pak, a leading food processing and packaging solutions company, linked the two sites to support efforts by operators of the two tree farms to earn certificates in responsible forestry management.

Korsnas is one of Tetra Pak's 13 suppliers worldwide. The 13 suppliers deliver 2 million tons of paperboard each year to the packaging giant.

Tetra Pak said the Yong'an project promotes environmentally friendly management of forest resources in China.

The FSC is an independent non-profit organization that sets industry standards based on promoting environmental protections, recycling and business ethics.

Highest standards

"Our packages are based on renewable resources, wood fiber, and our goal is to have 100 percent of our wood fiber supply coming from forests that are certified to meet the highest standard - currently the FSC," said Nils Bjorkman, a vice president of Sweden-based Tetra Pak Group who is in charge of commercial operations and cluster organizations of the group.

Bjorkman said Tetra Pak wants its factories to achieve 100 percent FSC certification by 2018.

So far, all paperboards processed from wood fiber that Tetra Pak uses in China are imported.

But the company is looking for qualified local suppliers to cut transportation costs and increase business efficiencies.

FSC certification here and developing a qualified local sourcing base are important steps that the multinational company has to take to achieve its goal, insiders said.

"The top requirements are safety and environmental protection," Carol Yang, vice president of Tetra Pak China, told China Business Weekly.

Ten global suppliers - three in Scandinavia, five in North America, one in Brazil and one in Russia - provided 98 percent of the paperboard Tetra Pak needed last year. The remaining 2 percent was provided by suppliers in Pakistan, Japan and India.

Last year, 33 percent of the wood Tetra Pak used was from FSC certified forests, even though only 5 percent of the world's productive forests were FSC certified.

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