Forest and chemical industries
Forest and chemical industries are among the three most important industrial fields in Finland. In both areas, research and development investments focus on biotechnology.
Forest industry
Finland has the world’s strongest forest cluster, drawing on broad-based knowledge and expertise in sustainable forest management and wood and fibre products. Almost 80% (270,000 km2) of the country is covered by forests.
Forest industry is facing big challenges all over the world - also in Finland. New products and business concepts are needed in order to maintain competitiveness in the global economy. The Finnish forest cluster has outlined its national research agenda with the goal of doubling the value of its products and services by 2030. With the establishment of a new innovation company, Forest Cluster Ltd, the industry launched Finland's first strategic centre for science, technology and innovation.
The aim of Forestcluster Ltd is to increase and deepen the cooperation between companies, universities and research institutes in the area of high quality and innovative research. The focuses are:
- intelligent and resource-efficient production technologies
- future biorefinery
- customer solutions for the future
Chemical industry
The majority of the Finnish chemical industry´s production is used in some other industry. The core areas are in forests industry, agriculture, construction, electronics industry, food supply and environmental products.
The importance of forest industry chemicals in chemical industry is decreasing. Big trends in the Finnish chemistry and chemical industry are
- exploitation of renewable raw materials
- energy and material efficiency
- biofuels - especially biodiesel
- water, water chemicals and solutions for water processing
- green chemisty
- EU regulation on chemicals REACH, along with the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) established in Helsinki