Consumables

UPM swaps the road for the river in France

Monday 22. September 2008 - UPM inaugurates today a new innovative transportation system to increase its river transportation capacity between Paris and Rouen in France.

The system transports finished paper products to the printers of the Paris area. The barge returns back to the UPM Chapelle Darblay mill in Rouen with recovered papers.

The transportation system decreases the amount of trucks on the A13 motorway in France by 4,500 each year. This reduces both the fossil fuel consumption and the CO2 emissions by 40%.

The system has been developed by UPM as an alternative to road transports. The development has been done in cooperation with the local recovered paper collector SYCTOM and with the engagement of many public organisations.

After several years of development, the river transportation now achieves a volume of 113,000 tons per year for the shipping of both recovered papers and paper reels. When the project started in 2005 the amount of recovered papers transported was only 17,000 tons.

The new system is central to UPM’s environmental approach. It encompasses sustainable forest management, preservation of natural resources and biodiversity, development of renewable biofuels and the efficiency of energy consumption. The Group also works hard to streamline its logistic solutions to minimise the impact of transportation

“UPM aims to be a front-runner in the logistic field by limiting the environmental impacts of its transports. The river transport project that we now inaugurate is a striking example of our commitment to this target”, comments Jean-Marc Louvet, President of UPM-Kymmene France SAS.

The UPM Chapelle Darblay mill in Rouen produces 100 % recycled newsprint from recovered newspapers and magazines. In addition, a biomass-based boiler produces bioenergy used by the mill.