UPM joins Together for Sustainability

UPM has joined Together for Sustainability (TfS), a chemical industry initiative that promotes and improves sustainability practises within its supply chains. By joining the initiative the member companies share a wide coverage of supplier data, such as audit reports and sustainability assessments performed by independent experts.

"UPM's traditional businesses are having high exposure to chemical industry supply chain, not only on chemical raw materials but also on equipment and services," said Ilkka Nurmi, senior VP UPM Sourcing. "While UPM is not a chemical company, we actively work on portfolio transformation and have a great growth potential in biofuels and biochemicals businesses where we are heavily entering the arena of chemistry.” TfS has established a standard approach for evaluating and improving the sustainabilty performance of suppliers. Evaluation covers key areas such as environmental impact, health and safety, labour and human rights as well as management and governance. The assessments and audits benefit both members and suppliers, who only go through the process once and avoid multiple assessments by different customers. "Responsible sourcing has been high on UPM's agenda for years and we have already done a lot of work to ensure the sustainability of our supply chains. However, the global supply networks are so complex that it's necessary to pool the resources so that everyone can have access for a wider range of supplier sustainability information. This efficiency will enable focus on sustainability improvements in the supply chains. This is what TfS is all about," added Nurmi.