Valmet paves the road to carbon neutral pulp and paper production

It has been estimated that as much as 95 percent of Valmet’s value chain’s carbon footprint comes from the use phase when customers are using its technologies. When Valmet’s climate program was introduced in 2021, two targets were set to decrease that particular part of the value chain’s footprint: first, enabling 100 percent carbon neutral production for all our pulp and paper customers by developing new process technologies, and second, improving the energy efficiency of our current offering by 20 percent.  

Valmet’s technologies already enable carbon neutral pulp, board, tissue and paper production for customers with access to fossil-free energy sources  

“When it comes to the first target, we have had excellent progress as we already reached our goal in 2023. We now offer carbon neutral production opportunities for our pulp, paper, board, and tissue customers, with the precondition that the customer has bioenergy or carbon neutral electricity in use. Carbon neutral production can be achieved by combining the best available technologies, optimizing mill design and selecting the right automation, Industrial Internet and service solutions,” says Janne Pynnönen, VP R&D at Valmet.  

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“Having achieved this target, the focus currently is on the customers that don´t have bioenergy or carbon neutral electricity in use yet. Together with those customers, we are trying to find ways to use different energy sources with different equipment and machinery. We are well prepared to do so, as Valmet has already long enabled carbon neutral heat and power production with our biomass-based energy solutions – in fact, many of our customers’ chemical pulp mills using our technologies already are bioenergy self-sufficient, promoting carbon neutral pulp production,” he continues. 

Energy efficiency is in the heart of Valmet’s R&D 

The second target is to improve the energy efficiency of our current offering by 20% by 2030.  

“The progress towards the target has been good. In tissue, paper and board production, we have taken many actions to reduce energy use and we are developing individual technologies and machine sections that bring improvements in energy use. For example, Valmet sleeve roll is a great example of such development from the recent years. In pulp production, our focus has not only been energy efficiency but also water and raw material use that is important in more sustainable pulp production,” Pynnönen says. 

Carbon neutrality is a shared responsibility 

Pynnönen reminds that even though Valmet has already achieved good results in enabling carbon neutral production for its customers, the work is continuously on-going. 

“We will further emphasize developing the energy, water and raw material efficiency in our product portfolio and continue offering our services and automation solutions to our customers to optimize the production processes in the installed base. Co-operation is the key – many of our customers have set ambitious climate goals themselves, and Valmet has an essential role in helping them to achieve them,” Pynnönen states.