Ilmatar partners with Istutapuita.fi – The trees planted will capture almost 7,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide

The plantings over an area of six hectares will capture almost 7,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions during the life of the trees.

“As a company, we want to be actively involved in conserving and improving biodiversity as well as in increasing carbon sinks. When we build clean, renewable Finnish energy, we unfortunately have to remove some trees. We will compensate these by planting new forest in partnership with the Istutapuita organisation,” comments Erkka Saario, Vice President Projects at Ilmatar.

“As Finnish actors, our values and ways of working seemed to be very compatible right from the start. The Istutapuita service model suits our purpose well, even though it was created to offset CO2 emissions. Hopefully, we will be the start of a new business culture in the wind power sector,” Saario adds.

The upcoming plantings will be in former peatland production areas, which means that earlier emission sources will become carbon sinks. This supports Ilmatar’s sustainability.

“A significant increase in the number of trees is nowadays considered to be one of the most effect ways to slow climate warming. Growing a new forest means we can capture carbon dioxide in our atmosphere in the biomass of the trees so that it does not adversely affect the climate. Forests are generally well managed in Finland and this enables the rapid growth of forests while increasing the capacity of carbon sinks. Wood is usually used for industrial needs once the forest has matured. A carbon sink then vanishes. We want to bring in a business model where forest cultivation and management are driven more by nature values so that the forest can be grown more sustainably, taking biodiversity better into account,” explains Istutapuita.fi CEO Timo Tammenaho.

During the partnership, trees will be planted in several phases and the partnership covers at least 35 years of management for each planting. A start will be made on planting in Ilmatar’s areas in spring 2023. Pines will be planted since these are best suited to the soil in the area concerned. Forest management will also take biodiversity into account and so the plan is to leave any naturally growing species of tree such as birch in place there.

Further information:

Mikko Niimes
Manager, Communications & PR
Ilmatar Energy Oy
+358 40 533 2931
mikko.niimes@ilmatar.fi

Timo Tammenaho
CEO
Istutapuita.fi
+358 40 485 6607
timo@istutapuita.fi

ILMATAR

Ilmatar Energy Oy is an independent Finnish energy company that exclusively produces renewable energy and operates at every single stage of wind power production: Ilmatar develops, builds and owns renewable energy production and sells the power generated to consumer customers and businesses. Ilmatar’s renewable energy farms are built on market terms for ownership by Ilmatar.

Ilmatar Energy Group comprises Ilmatar Energy and several project development companies as well as Ilmatar Service Oy, which is responsible for the technical and commercial management of our wind farms.

ISTUTAPUITA.FI

Istutapuita.fi is a Finnish service that provides a simple, understandable way to slow climate change by planting trees and thereby increase carbon sinks. Besides this, the aim is to help people and businesses to identify ways and development targets to reduce their carbon footprint. The service already covers 77 hectares, which during their lifecycle will capture around 90 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. From next spring, around 55,000 trees will be growing. www.istutapuita.fi