Swedish forest industry group Södra has launched Liquid Forest™, a pioneering range of bioproducts: biomethanol, tall oil and turpentine. The Liquid Forest™ brand is a concept that offers the market and customers an opportunity to choose climate-smart products derived from sustainably-managed forests from the company’s 53,000 forest-owning members in southern Sweden.
Bioproducts are the climate-smart alternative to fossil-based raw materials with the potential to play an important role in the world’s transition to a circular economy. They can be used for a large variety of applications. Södra’s turpentine, for example, could be used in perfume and detergent, and tall oil in paint, as an adhesive on various types of labels or as a biofuel. Biomethanol is used as a green chemical in the production of biodiesel but also as a base chemical in both petrochemicals and the flavour and fragrance industry.
“We are dedicated to finding more sustainable solutions for everyday life and delighted that the potential of the forest is really coming into its own now,” said Viktor Odenbrink, Sales Manager for Södra Cell Bioproducts. “As a leading forest products company with an emphasis on innovation, we have an important responsibility to accelerate the development of sustainable solutions from renewable forest materials. The customer is getting exactly what the Liquid Forest™ brand name conveys: A piece of the Swedish forest in liquid form for a fossil-free and sustainable future.”
Södra’s bioproducts are produced by the same mills which make the company’s paper pulp and textile pulp, using the raw materials which the pulp process does not need. In this way, no part of the tree is wasted. The company’s biomethanol plant at the Mönsterås pulp mill is the first commercial plant of its kind in the world.
“New opportunities to use biomethanol, tall oil and turpentine are constantly emerging,” explained Johannes Bogren, Vice President Södra Cell Bioproducts. “And we are investing in research and development to do everything we can to take advantage of the emerging opportunities. We also have many other exciting projects under development. The aim is the same: To become even more resource efficient by producing additional value streams and products from our existing raw materials.”
Magnus Björkman, President Södra Cell: “Our mission is to develop and promote sustainable climate-smart solutions for the future based on renewable raw materials from the forest. Since our wood comes from our members’ forests, we have an intrinsic advantage in that we have control over the entire value chain, from seed to customer.”
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