UPM-Kymmene Oy : UPM Plywood introduces a tool to calculate logistics carbon footprint

(UPM, Lahti, 20 January 2012 at 13:00 EET) - UPM Plywood has developed an online tool to calculate carbon emissions resulting from transportation of plywood. A public beta version of the calculator is available at .

The map based calculator allows user to calculate the total carbon emissions resulting from transport of plywood products. The full logistics chain comprising various transportation methods can be modelled from a UPM plywood mill all the way to the customer's yard. The calculator shows carbon emissions also for each weight and volume unit of the freight.

"Typical carbon calculation for industrial products covers operations from raw material to finished product. In order for the customer to be able to calculate carbon footprint for his products, he also needs to know the carbon emissions resulting from delivering the goods to him", says Sanna Kontinen, Environmental Manager at UPM Plywood.

Carbon footprint is a way to describe the total greenhouse gas emissions resulting directly or indirectly from the production of goods and services. A product's carbon footprint comprises of raw materials, energy and transport. UPM has calculated production related carbon footprint profiles, as well as the amount of carbon stored in the product, for all of its plywood and veneer products. Plywood is very effective carbon storage as the amount of carbon stored in it is several times bigger than what is released during the manufacturing.

UPM's Logistics Carbon Calculator will be developed still further. It could also be used to calculate transport emissions for other products in the future. The development work will utilise results from the European Commission's Carbon Footprint of Freight -program. The program's objective is to establish a global methodology to calculate carbon footprint and energy consumption for logistics. UPM is one of this three year project's international partners offering testing environment to the future carbon footprint standards.

For further information please contact:
Ms Sanna Kontinen, Environmental Manager, UPM Plywood, tel.

UPM Plywood offers high-quality WISA® plywood and veneer products mainly for construction and transport industries as well as the formable UPM GradaTM Plywood for furniture and manufacturing industries. The sales of UPM Plywood in 2010 were EUR 347 million and it has about 2,500 employees. UPM has six plywood mills and a veneer mill in Finland and plywood mills in Russia and Estonia. www.wisaplywood.

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