We all love positive news stories and when the good news bear arrives, we take notice. Good news makes your heart sing, your soul feel hopeful, and those good ole\u2019 endorphins and dopamine receptors explode with glee.<\/p>\n
So to ward off the Monday blues, we bring you the \u2018good news bear,\u2019 brought to you by UPM with their recent flurry of joyful news.<\/p>\n
UPM received some exciting news last week from consultancy company P\u00f6yry about their Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for UPM\u2019s possible Kotka Biorefinery in Finland. Not only has the EIA been completed and submitted to the \u201cauthorities\u201d for their final conclusions, it offers rave reviews of the biorefinery saying it would have substantial positive impacts such as increasing utilization of wastes and residues as well as decreases in greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n
According to the EIA, the decrease of the greenhouse gas emissions achieved by the biorefinery would be as much as 16% of the greenhouse gas emissions generated by Finnish road traffic \u2013 equivalent to three times the greenhouse gas emissions of a city the size of Helsinki. How\u2019s that for some good news?<\/p>\n
If realized, the UPM Kotka Biorefinery would also have a very positive effect on the Kotka region\u2019s economic life and finances indeed. Good news on top of good news!<\/p>\n
According to UPM, \u201cthe EIA is part of the approximately year-long pre-study phase for the Kotka Biorefinery, looking at the feasibility of the project. EU and national policies on biofuels will also play an important role in the final assessment of this possible investment. The final conclusions of the authorities for the EIA are expected in the beginning of next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Check out UPM\u2019s Strategic Transformation: The Digest\u2019s 2018 Multi-Slide Guide to UPM, the Biofore company to get more details on UPM\u2019s plans to become a major player in high quality, advanced biofuels for transport and their innovative wood-based biofuels and production technologies.<\/p>\n
Biorefinery Background
\nThe UPM Kotka Biorefinery would produce approximately 500,000 tons of advanced biofuels made from sustainable raw materials for use in the road transport, marine and aviation sectors. The biorefinery\u2019s products could also be used for replacing fossil raw materials in the chemical industry.<\/p>\n
The proposed site is in the area of a dismantled power plant formerly run by the Pohjolan Voima energy company.<\/p>\n
The Yin and Yang of EIA
\nSo it can\u2019t all be good news right? After all, we need the yin to go with the yang, but in this case there isn\u2019t much to counter balance the good news.<\/p>\n
The Environmental Impact Assessment states that the UPM Kotka Biorefinery is feasible, and the possible environmental impacts can be limited by the means stated in the assessment. If the biorefinery goes ahead, the main environmental impacts will be caused by increased traffic and changes in the landscape. Even for \u2018bad\u2019 news, it really isn\u2019t that bad since there are ways to deal with the traffic and landscape changes that would come with any biorefinery.<\/p>\n
And remember, the renewable and sustainable raw materials and efficient processes of the possible Kotka Biorefinery enable significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions compared to fossil-based fuels and products. That\u2019s a pretty strong yang or \u201csunny side\u201d to the yin or \u201cdark side\u201d.<\/p>\n
Busy Bear
\nNot only is UPM bringing us the good news bear today, it has been for a while.<\/p>\n
Just a few weeks ago, UPM was recognized as a Global Compact LEAD company for its strong engagement to the United Nations Global Compact, as reported in The Digest. The recognition was addressed to only 34 global companies at the Global Compact Leaders Summit in New York and recognized companies like Unilever, Nestle S.A., BASF SE and L\u2019Oreal \u2013 making UPM listed with some nice company.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing among the 34 world\u2019s leading companies in sustainability is an outstanding recognition for the work UPM has done in the area of responsible business conduct,\u201d said Pirkko Harrela, Executive Vice President, Stakeholder Relations, UPM. \u201cWe have had the LEAD status since January 2016 when we were invited for the first time to this distinguished network as the only forest industry company and also as the first Finnish company ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
UPM Biofuels\u2019 continuous efforts for a more sustainable supply chain and operations was also recognized by the world\u2019s first RSB (Roundtable of Sustainable Biomaterials) low ILUC (indirect land use change) risk certification, as reported in The Digest in April. The certificate was received for crude tall oil, the feedstock used for UPM BioVerno renewable fuels production at the Lappeenranta Biorefinery in Finland, and for UPM\u2019s cultivation of the Brassica carinata oil crop in Uruguay.<\/p>\n
The RSB low ILUC risk certification is an additional proof of sustainability for UPM Biofuels, showing that the company\u2019s use of crude tall oil and Brassica carinata oil for biofuels production has a low risk of causing indirect emissions elsewhere. The low ILUC risk RSB certification places UPM Biofuels\u2019 raw materials, crude tall oil and Brassica carinata oil in the category of most sustainable feedstocks.<\/p>\n
The \u2018Beary\u2019 Bottom Line
\nAll this good news is making us giddy, but in all seriousness, UPM is rockin\u2019 it with how serious they are taking the sustainability aspects of what they do. The RSB certification, the EIA study, the UN Global Compact recognition\u2026it means they are doing the right things. They are a Care Bear and a Good News Bear all in one\u2026maybe they should change their logo from the griffin and guardian of the northern forests to a bear? Since the griffin logo is the oldest continuous company logo in Finland, we doubt it, but we digress\u2026<\/p>\n
Back to the amazing things UPM is doing\u2026it even makes economic sense. With Finland set to boost its use of biofuels to 54% by 2030 including double counting for fuels produced from forestry waste like UPM\u2019s, the company could provide 30% of Finland\u2019s diesel demand and achieve the mandate, as reported in The Digest in February 2017. With that, we foresee more to come from UPM\u2019s good news bear, or griffin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We all love positive news stories and when the good news bear arrives, we take notice. Good news makes your heart sing, your soul feel hopeful, and those good ole\u2019 endorphins and dopamine receptors explode with glee. So to ward off the Monday blues, we bring you the \u2018good news bear,\u2019 brought to you by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[5838,5831],"supplier":[4676],"class_list":["post-57496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-bioeconomy","tag-biorefinery","supplier-upm-biofuels"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57496\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57496"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=57496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}