Significantly reducing carbon emissions at our Roermond paper mill gets us closer to meeting goals set by our Net Zero Transition plan. The plant produces 660,000 tons of paper yearly, all from recycled fiber. With a new printing press and plans for electrification, it’s serving as an industry example for sustainable processes.

The plant team worked with Voith, a company specializing in sustainable technologies, to redesign its press, creating a high-performance shoe press that reduces the amount of steam needed to dry paper. Reducing steam usage by 7500 tonnes yearly significantly reduced the mill’s carbon emissions by 1113 tonnes.

Roermond is the first mill in the industry to apply this type of shoe design, and the technology can be adopted by more of our mills in order to further reduce emissions. Plans are also in the works to electrify mill processes in order to reduce CO2 emissions by an estimation of over 42,000 tonnes a year. Scheduled for completion in early 2027, these plans include:

• Increasing the grid connection to 72 MW.
• Adjusting onsite infrastructure, which is now in the pre-engineering phase.
• Building and implementing two electric boilers, now in pre-engineering as well.

In support of the Dutch Energy Transition, the mill already cooperates with the national gird to scale down electricity usage of electricity in the event of a shortage or scale up usage when there are energy excesses.