Valmet promotes sustainability in fabrics business

Jun 24, 2021

As part of Valmet´s comprehensive Sustainability 360° agenda, Valmet’s Fabrics unit has created its sustainability action plan. The target is to accelerate the development of more environmentally friendly paper machine clothing and filter fabrics benefitting Valmet´s customers as well as to enhance the reduction of CO2 emissions and energy consumption in fabrics production.

“Energy and resource efficiency and extended fabric lifetime have already for many years steered the R&D work of fabrics as well as their production, so we are not starting from zero here,” says Mika Lahtinen, Director, Research and Development, Fabrics Business Unit, Services at Valmet. “We want to take significantly bigger steps and lead the way in the industry towards more sustainable fabric offering and manufacturing.”

Developing four key areas in increasing sustainability

The development actions are divided into four areas: sustainable raw materials, waste reduction and resource efficiency, energy efficiency, and carbon footprint reduction.

“At the beginning of the year we restructured our R&D operations and established a specialized team with focus on new materials and recycling. The team has already developed novel filter fabrics using recycled polymers and with very promising results. Prototyping at selected customers commences shortly. In addition to using recycled materials, our roadmap includes finding new ways to reuse our fabrics, introducing more sustainable packaging materials, and lowering the energy consumption and CO2 emissions at Fabrics’ production units,” says Lahtinen.

Supporting customers’ environmental targets

A driving force is Valmet´s aim to support customers in reaching their sustainability targets. Valmet’s paper machine clothing, filter fabrics and industrial textiles delivered mainly to the pulp, paper, mining, chemical and energy industries contribute to energy efficiency, the reduction of water consumption and raw material usage as well as to the management of mine tailings.

VALMET

Corporate Communications

For further information, please contact:

Mika Lahtinen, Director, Research and Development, Fabrics Business Unit, Services, Valmet, tel. +358 50 470 7873

Valmet is the leading global developer and supplier of process technologies, automation and services for the pulp, paper and energy industries. We aim to become the global champion in serving our customers.

Valmet's strong technology offering includes pulp mills, tissue, board and paper production lines, as well as power plants for bioenergy production. Our advanced services and automation solutions improve the reliability and performance of our customers' processes and enhance the effective utilization of raw materials and energy.

Valmet's net sales in 2020 were approximately EUR 3.7 billion. Our 14,000 professionals around the world work close to our customers and are committed to moving our customers' performance forward - every day. Valmet's head office is in Espoo, Finland and its shares are listed on the Nasdaq Helsinki.

Processing of personal data

Tags

2021

Paper machine clothing and filter fabrics

As a full line clothing supplier, Valmet offers fabric solutions for the entire paper and board making process. Valmet’s complete high quality sustainable fabric solutions improve paper making process performance, and contribute to efficient production, reduced energy consumption and overall cost reduction in all types of paper and board machines.

Filter fabrics for demanding filtration conditions

Valmet develops and manufactures filter fabrics for the mining, chemical, pulp and paper industries, as well as for energy production, waste processing plants, and the food manufacturing industry. As environmental legislation gets tighter and the requirements for filtering waste and sewage become higher, filter fabrics must be increasingly durable and reliable, with the ability to filter different types of sludge and various particle sizes.