As Lenzing implemented its decarbonization strategy, the company shifted the transportation of some inbound materials from road to rail transport and shipping to improve its CO2 footprint. This means for example that the transportation of sulfur purchased from one supplier was switched from road to rail, totaling approximately 15,000 tons of sulfur per year.
Lenzing’s wood logistics system moves large quantities of material and is therefore highly cost-optimized. Continuous improvement in this area also minimizes emissions from logistics by favoring train transport wherever possible.
Ship to Zero campaign – carbon-neutral shipping
Lenzing piloted carbon-neutral shipping in October 2021, collaborating with Good Shipping during COP26 (UN Climate Conference). The joint goal of several companies was to achieve a CO2 reduction of 4,000 tons, equivalent to a journey from Rotterdam to Glasgow by ship. Lenzing’s contribution involved reducing 50 tons of CO2. In 2022 Lenzing established a sustainable logistics transportation system involving break bulk mode transport thereby reducing CO2 emission by at least 15 percent versus container mode of transport, making the transport of dissolving wood pulp from Brazil to China more efficient. In 2023 it is planned to ship around 90 percent of pulp by break bulk and around 10 percent by container.
High Performer Award from the EPA Smart-Way® Transport Partnership1
This award was given twice to the site in Mobile (US) in 2020 and 2021. SmartWay Partners submit efficiency and air quality performance data to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) annually. EPA aggregates and divides the data into five ranked performance ranges. SmartWay High Performers are partners whose efficiency and/or air quality performance falls within the top-ranked performance range.
Pentatrains
The use of pentatrains, which have five cargo boxes instead of the convential three, represents a productivity increase of more than 50 % compared to tritrains. This could lead to a reduction of 5,600 trips on highways and savings of up to 220,000 liters of Diesel annually. This has already been implemented in Brazil and it is planned for LD Celulose to have a fleet of 15 pentatrains to transport wood from the plantations.
New software for wood purchasing ensures greater transparency and facilitates the logistics process
There are many process steps between the felling of a tree to the delivery of wood to the plant in Lenzing (Austria). The wood must be labeled, and around 80 rail wagons and 80 trucks must be directed to Lenzing’s site every day. All of this requires an elaborate Europe-wide logistics process and special software that guarantees the smooth flow of information between the individual stations.
In order to make contract management, wood trading and purchasing, logistics and control simple and transparent, the decision was made to switch to a new special software system. In 2019, the first milestone was reached with the implementation of electronic bill delivery.
Another important milestone was contract management, which went live in June 2022. This involved the electronic creation of contracts, including electronic approvals and signatures, as well as the associated document management. This milestone will make future work much easier and more transparent, and is an important step towards a paperless office for the wood purchasing department.