Production process improvement

Norske Skog`s environmental policy commits us to achieve continous improvement in the environmental performance of our mills. In 2011 we reduced our discharges to water and emissions to air for many parametres.

The desire to measure the continous improvement in our mills and as a company, over both the short and the long term, led us to develop an environmental index (E- index) several years ago.

The E-index forms part of the regular reporting by the mills to corporate management and the board. In addition to being a performance reporting tool it allows us to:

establish and review mill specific targets
identify and target areas for additional investment
demonstrate the environmental improvements derived from process changes or investments.

The environmental index for the whole company is calculated as an average of each mill`s index score weighted by production volumes. The environmental index covers the following key areas : water consumption, total energy use, quality of treated effluent discharges, air emissions (NOx) and waste to landfill.

In 2011, nine mills reached their E-index targets and the company E-index target was significantly improved compared to 2010. The company`s ambitious target was however not reached. Changes in production levels and process changes within mills will impact the individual mill and company E-Index scores.

Reductions per tonne of paper were however obtained for discharges to water of dissolved organic material, suspended solids and nitrogen. The emission to air of sulphur dioxide per tonne of paper was increased by two per cent compared to 2010 due to increased use of oil at the mill in Chile. The total quantity of production waste decreased by 12000 tonnes compared to 2010. In 2011, 76 per cent of the waste was used as biofuel, up from 75 per cent in 2010. The amount of haxardeous waste increased by nine per cent compared to 2010. The increase is due to a fire at Norske Skog Saugbrugs.