Consumables
Plantation and Wood Chip Businesses in Brazil and Australia Obtain Forest Certification
Wednesday 18. February 2009 - Toward certified trees/planted trees for all Nippon Paper imports of hardwood chips
On December 23, 2008, the plantation and wood chip business, AMCEL (Amapa Florestal e Celulose S.A. *Note 1), jointly owned and managed by Nippon Paper Industries Co., Ltd. and Marubeni Corporation in Brazil, obtained the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) forest certification, a well-known system of forest certification with worldwide coverage. On January 23, 2009, the State forests in Western Australia where WAPRES (WA Plantation Resources Pty. Ltd. *Note 2), the plantation and wood chip export company jointly owned and managed by both companies in Australia, purchases part of the raw material for wood chips, also obtained the AFS (Australian Forestry Standard *Note 3) certification. As WAPRES had already obtained the AFS certification for its own plantations since 2004, the Companys chipping facilities are expected to obtain the CoC (Chain of Custody *Note 4) certification very soon. These achievements make all the WAPRES wood chip exports to Japan CoC certified.
Achieving the Targets in the Environmental Action Plan
As laid out in the environmental action plans for the Nippon Paper Group, Nippon Paper Industries is working toward stated targets including “all domestic and overseas Company-owned forest shall acquire forest certifications by 2008” and “the ratio of hardwood chips derived from certified forets and plantation against imported hardwood chips shall be 100% by 2008.” On this occasion, we have been able to achieve these targets thanks to the forest certification obtained by these two companies (*Note 5). From now on, we will steadfastly practice sustainable raw material procurement while aiming to realize Group Vision 2015, which will grow corporate value for the Nippon Paper Group in the future.
Increasing the Value of the Business by Obtaining Forest Certification
Marubeni aims to “expand the value chain from raw materials to finished products” by developing the pulp and paper industries upstream and downstream across the whole domain. In the upstream domain, in particular, the company is involved with operations and investments in plantation businesses in overseas, including Australia and Brazil as the Company believes that there is ever more importance on securing planted tree resources. With these two companies obtaining the forest certification, the value of the business are increased and lead to the “sustainable growth” stipulated in the “SG2009” the medium term management plan for the Company Group.