Lena Samelli-Johannsen, Business Area Manager of Swedish Forests, Sveaskog
Sveaskog is Sweden’s largest forest owner and sells sawlogs, pulpwood and biofuel to the pulp and paper and sawmill industries. However, we recognize that forests generate vast amounts of value for people beyond simply the raw materials they provide.
Sveaskog has worked with the internationally recognized economist Pavan Sukhdev and his team at GIST Advisory to quantify Sveaskog’s value creation. This multidimensional value is estimated according to the Integrated Profit and Loss <IP&L> methodology.
Using this framework, we have begun to identify, measure and value some of the benefits that have been previously invisible, but that emanate from our forests and woodland. Our initial valuation of carbon sequestration and water regulation services alone, according to primary estimates, provide value of upwards of 1.1 billion USD each year.
This work has given Sveaskog a way to translate the value of natural capital and ecosystem services into information that provides our business with a fuller picture of the value we create for society, as well as a means to determine the ways in which we depend on complex natural systems and interactions for our successful operations. This information can also express the ways that we are impacting on the health of services we depend on, warn us if they are beginning to be strained, and guide us towards the best place to target investment in the environment to maintain its health, and our success.
Forest management is also a cornerstone in the development of a circular bio economy, and Sveaskog is exploring how it can contribute to this movement.
Sveaskog sets aside land to be developed into venues for hunting, fishing and other recreation activities and 20% of our productive forest land is earmarked for the conservation of nature and the creation of ecoparks.
Read the full report here.
