The Pulp Division comprises all Lenzing Group business activities from wood procurement through to the production and sale of dissolving wood pulp and biorefinery products. The new pulp mill in Indianópolis (Brazil) is already successfully producing excellent quality pulp at a nameplate capacity of around 500,000 tonnes per year, making it one of the largest and most productive mills in the world. Surplus electricity is fed into the public grid as renewable energy. These new production volumes contribute significantly to strengthening Lenzing’s self-sufficiency in dissolving wood pulp and support premiumization in line with the corporate strategy. Lenzing holds a 51 percent interest in the joint venture LD Celulose, which was established for the construction of the plant.
The new pulp plant enables Lenzing to strengthen its own supply of dissolving wood pulp and thereby largely reduce its dependence on external pulp suppliers. To provide the biomass, LD Celulose secured over 44,000 hectares of FSC®-certified commercial forest, and leased additional land, in order to have approximately 70,000 hectares of FSC®-certified forest area when completed.1 These plantations operate in full accordance with the Lenzing’s guidelines and high standards for wood and pulp sourcing.
In line with its “Better Growth” strategy, Lenzing is stepping up its recycling activities in order to accelerate the transformation of the textile and nonwovens industries from a linear to a circular economy model. Lenzing has been proactively developing and promoting innovations in the area for years in order to provide economically viable and scalable solutions to the global textile waste problem. Since 2021, Lenzing has been working with Swedish pulp producer Södra to jointly develop new processes for recycling used textiles on an industrial scale. In the reporting period, the project2 was supported by an EU grant of EUR 10 mn under the LIFE 2022 program.3
The Pulp Division’s external revenue reached a level of EUR 676.1 mn in 2023. Divisional earnings (EBITDA) amounted to EUR 462.1 mn, and operating earnings (EBIT) stood at EUR 284.6 mn.
Wood
The situation on the timber markets has largely stabilized after the dislocations in the previous year, and the extreme price fluctuations have in part receded.
The Lenzing Group’s procurement strategy entailing long-term master agreements achieved a good stabilizing effect on volumes and prices. As a consequence, Lenzing was able to supply its pulp sites in Lenzing (Austria) and Paskov (Czech Republic) with sufficient wood during the reporting year.
In 2023, audits in accordance with the Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC®) and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) forest certification systems confirmed again for both sites that, in addition to stringent forestry laws in the supplier countries, all wood used derives from PEFC and FSC® certified or controlled sources.4
Biorefinery
Pulp
The Pulp Division supplies the Lenzing Group’s fiber production sites with high-quality dissolving wood pulp and operates its own fiber pulp plants at the Lenzing, Paskov, and Indianópolis (Brazil) sites. This increased the level of self-sufficiency to significantly more than 75 percent targeted by the corporate strategy. Lenzing also established itself as a structural supplier in the global pulp market. Most of the dissolving wood pulp sourced externally is purchased on the basis of long-term contracts. A total of approximately 1,068,000 tonnes of dissolving wood pulp was produced at Lenzing’s pulp plants in 2023.
Biorefinery products
In addition to dissolving wood pulp, the Lenzing Group’s biorefineries also produce and market biorefinery products so that further components of the valuable raw material wood are utilized. Renowned customers from the food, animal feed, pharmaceutical and chemical industries rely on biobased products from Lenzing.
Lenzing continued to benefit from the trend towards greater sustainability and regional supply chains in 2023. A lifecycle analysis performed by the research institute Quantis confirmed that the carbon footprint of LENZING™ Acetic Acid Biobased is more than 85 percent smaller than that of comparable products based on fossil resources.
Following strong revenue growth in the previous year and a further increase in revenue in the first half of 2023, the biorefinery products LENZING™ Acetic Acid Biobased and LENZING™ Furfural Biobased posted lower revenue in the second half of the year, in line with the general price trend in the chemicals market. In May of the reporting year, Lenzing celebrated the 40th anniversary of its biorefinery concept and looked back on a long and successful development of this business sector.
1 FSC license code: FSC-C175509, FSC-C165948
2 Project 101113614 — LIFE22-ENV-SE-TREATS
3 https://cinea.ec.europa.eu/programmes/life_en
4 License code: FSC-C041246 and PEFC/06-33-92