In order to find ideas to further develop sustainable operations in forests commercial, Metsa Group organized a contest called Renew Metsä in October and November 2023 for the member-owners of its parent company Metsäliitto Cooperative.
“We received many great ideas and proposals at different levels of maturity and it was not easy to select the winners. All ideas, especially the award-winning ones, offer us valuable new perspectives and encourage us to continue developing our services and operations in various ways. This will not be the last competition. A warm thank you to all participants and congratulations to the winners,” he says. Silja Pitkänen-Art, sustainability director of the Metsä Group.
The competition sought new concrete ideas to boost the varied use, biodiversity, climate resilience, vitality and water protection of commercial forests, also paying attention to economic considerations. The proposed ideas were evaluated based on their innovation, feasibility, effectiveness, measurability and economic efficiency.
The member-owners of the Metsäliitto Cooperative submitted a total of approximately 250 ideas to the competition. The winners were selected by a jury made up of Metsä Group employees.
The first prize, worth 5.000 euros, went to Antti Ylitalo from Kuopio. The winning idea concerns a regional network of forestry demonstration sites. The network, which combines the digital and physical worlds in a novel way, could be used to present forest management methods and different stages of forestry, as well as practical examples of ecologically sustainable measures.
The second prize, worth 3.000 euros, went to Ville Taipale de Lemi, whose idea is related to the visualization and measurement of forestry operations. The new digital platform would allow for more concrete illustrations and calculations of what various forestry measures mean in practice and how they will affect forests in a few years, as well as what current and future economic impacts the measures have. The reporting tool could also be used to annually monitor environmental benefits.
The third prize, worth 1.000 euros, went to Matti Myllykoski from Siikalatva. His idea is related to the conditions of renewal at different sites. The idea would provide more accurate cost estimates and proposed measures, even for long-term forestry plans.
