One good example of this is to look at UPM Pulp’s forestry operations in Uruguay, which are – in the words of Álvaro Fitipaldo, UPM’s Vice President of Forestry Operations, Uruguay – “guided by a sustainability-driven vision that promotes continuous improvement across every stage of our operations.”
UPM first established plantations in Uruguay in the 1990s and today runs two major pulp mills and harvests 30,000 hectares from eucalyptus plantations there each year. We chose Uruguay because of its stability and reliability: a democratic society with high levels of transparency and low levels of corruption, providing the foundation for operations that get measurably more sustainable every year.
Tissue manufacturers today are under considerable scrutiny to ensure their suppliers are sustainable: measurably and transparently. So how can suppliers – including UPM – prove that they genuinely understand what sustainability in action looks like?
How Uruguay’s forestry model works in practice
Sustainable principles are today built-in to our Uruguayan forestry operations and processes – from nursery, to planting, to harvesting. Plantations are established on modified grasslands which have been grazed with cattle for over two centuries, so have fewer biodiversity impacts and lower reputational risks.
Three nurseries produce around 45 million eucalyptus seedlings per year. Over decades, UPM Pulp has worked to improve the genetic material of trees to achieve better productivity and today has one of the world-leading genomic improvement programmes. No Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are used – new clones are produced using our very modern, sophisticated take on traditional breeding techniques.
When transplanted to the field, a minimal amount of slow-release fertilizer accompanies the seedling, and only FSCTM / PEFC-approved pesticides are used – sparingly – to control leaf cutter ants to ensure the tree can survive its first year.
Herbicides are not used in our Uruguay plantations; neither is irrigation. Natural drainage areas are maintained with natural vegetation, while low areas and areas near waterways are not planted into plantations. Trees are harvested at around 10 years, with bark and leaf litter left behind to help protect soil health and avoid soil compaction during harvesting.
Since our first arrival in Uruguay in the 1990s, UPM has carefully monitored biodiversity in its sites. 1,831 species of native plants can be found on UPM sites – 75% of the total found in Uruguay. Today we have a network of 35 protected reserves. Around 60% of the 300,000 hectares land owned by UPM in Uruguay is used to develop plantations – the rest is used for grazing, infrastructure, and nature conservation.
Forwarding the cause of sustainability is also about embracing new insights and innovation wherever they may help. One such insight is that plantations integrate well with other activities and that the future of agriculture should also include forestry. We recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of the UPM Fomento Program in Uruguay, through which we now partner with over 900 producers across Uruguay who have chosen to integrate forestry into their land.
Two keys to sustainability: measurable, transparent
Any company making claims around sustainability needs to be able to measure environmental impact in a consistent, objectively verifiable way which covers the breadth of operations. As well as measuring our forestry operations, UPM Pulp is also rigorous and diligent when it comes to our mills in Uruguay: UPM Fray Bentos (opened in 2007) and UPM Paso de los Toros (opened in 2023).
Both of these mills maintain continuous transparency. At UPM Fray Bentos, for example, over 40 live sampling points correspond to UPM activities; monitored areas include water, biology, air quality, soil and insect health. Our soil monitoring programme identifies changes in the physicochemical properties of soils resulting from changes in land use around the mill. These findings then feed back into reviewing procedures. 18 years of fish monitoring has seen no difference in the diversity and abundance of fish around the mill area.
The UPM Paso de los Toros mill is among the most closely monitored pulp mills globally in terms of environmental performance. The mill records over 390,000 online data on a monthly basis, including river water quality data from three automatic monitoring stations, and online air quality data from three air quality stations. (1)
The measurement and evaluation of environmental performance and impact includes regular reporting by UPM in Uruguay and authorities on various websites; these online results are essential for continuous process monitoring.
UPM’s R&D teams use a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) which provides a comprehensive evaluation of environmental impacts across an entire supply chain, from the nursery onwards. The goal is not just to measure emissions but to create a data framework that allows comparisons to enable continuous improvement. This data feeds back into decision making, enabling UPM to produce more pulp using fewer resources.
Helping our communities and partners succeed
But measurement shouldn’t become the end in itself. For tissue producers and their customers, evaluating sustainability shouldn’t just be about annual targets and reporting. Demonstrating the real long-term benefits of community investment helps reinforce social and sustainable responsibility. Over 2,220 educators from the interior of Uruguay have received scholarships from the UPM Foundation in the last three years; this is just a part of UPM’s commitment to helping the communities around our sites to thrive and succeed. We continually provide significant sponsorship and support to local communities in Uruguay, supporting science-based actions to promote biodiversity and mitigate climate change.
Promoting sustainability also means committing to keeping your own supply chain accountable. UPM Pulp holds our partners up to scrutiny and transparent measurement: we contribute to UPM’s ‘-30 by 30’ program, which aims to reduce emissions from purchased materials and logistics by 30% by 2030. As part of the programme suppliers are required to provide data on the carbon footprint of the goods and services they sell to UPM. Continually driving improvements in the primary data from our suppliers helps produce more accurate carbon data for our tissue customers, so they can evidence greater sustainability in their own supply chains.
Making the difference in the everyday
UPM Pulp is committed to sustainable forestry and to helping its customers meet their sustainability targets. It’s not just forestry: we manage the entire lifecycle of the pulp products – from the forest or plantation, to the mill, to the customer.
All of UPM’s forestry and plantation models – whether in Uruguay or Finland – today represent successful demonstrations of measurable sustainability. We are the only forest and paper company in the Dow Jones European and World Sustainability Indices (DJSI), and are in the top 1% – the highest possible Platinum level – for our sustainability performance in the EcoVadis Sustainability Rating.
Making sustainability real is about big long-term goals, but also about what we really do in our working lives – every single day. UPM is continually working to give tissue providers peace-of-mind when it comes to procuring sustainable pulp. We’re also, by example, giving them the confidence and support to promote sustainable practices throughout their wider partner networks – and deliver sustainable products to their customers.
(1) Report: UPM Paso de los Toros – Environmental and Societal Responsibility 2024
FSC C014719, PEFC/02-31-80
