Logistics has an important role to play in forest industry’s production chain. First, wood material is transported from the forest to the mill by using a flexible combination of railways, vehicles and water transport. Then after processing, it is shipped to the customer as pulp, paper, plywood, or sawn timber.
Carbon footprint and emissions can be reduced by choosing the most appropriate vehicles, routes and warehouses for the transport needs. This also improves transport efficiency. Here at UPM, we always take environmental responsibility and safety into account when making logistical choices in transporting raw materials and products.
UPM Forest uses a 100-tonne High Capacity Transport (HCT) combination vehicle to transport wood and four slightly lighter combination vehicles to transport chips between Finnish mills. These longer than 25.25 metres HCT combination vehicles have many benefits, including lower emissions and up to a fifth lower fuel consumption. They also improve safety by reducing the number of trucks on the road.
Another efficient method of transportation is floating. UPM Forest stands out in a good way as it is the only company in Finland that uses that environmentally friendly method. Water routes are ready for use without requiring any additional investment and they also act as free storages.
Floating has smaller carbon footprint than any other transportation as it uses only a third of the energy used in vehicle transports and half of that used in railway and ship transports. When transporting large amounts of wood at one time, floating frees up transport resources, especially from long distances.
Every year, approximately 200 000 cubic meters of wood is transported to UPM Plywood’s Pellos mill by floating. Transporting a corresponding amount by road would take 3300 truckloads.