How timber became a model of new energyFriday 25 Feb 2022
For a number of years now, wood fibre from Sweden’s Domsjö Fabriker mill has been woven into the fabric of British designer Stella McCartney’s top collections. That the product has made it to high fashion says a lot about wood fibre’s versatility. Martin Forsen, who formerly managed the Domsjö Fabriker mill, recalls those early interactions his team had with McCartney. Now executive chairman of SilviPar, a Stockholm-based timber management company, he says: “Stella came to us in the mid-2000s, wanting to use wood fibre in preference to leather or cotton.” At the time, he says, Domsjö Fabriker could have perhaps been better described as a bio-refinery. Located in Omaskoldsvik, it had an established reputation for converting raw forest materials into specialty cellulose, lignin and bio-ethanol. The mill has since been sold to Indian conglomerate Aditya Birla Group. McCartney today creates fashion from wood-based cellulose, which is processed into viscose filament in Germany, then converted into thread and woven into fabric in Italy. As someone whose business ethos is guided by sustainability, it is hardly surprising that McCartney would seek out timber fibre to use in her collections. It is more sustainable than, say, cotton, which requires large quantities of water, pesticide and fertiliser. And Forsen is helping drive further evolution in the timber industry through SilviPar. This year, the company jointly launched its SA Impact Forestry Fund (SAIFF) with London-based specialist alternatives manager, Astarte Capital Partners. SAIFF had its first close a few months ago, reaching almost half of its target capacity of US$200m (€88.6m) from pension funds, big corporates and other impact investors. The fund is scalable, and potentially could raise an additional $100m to reach its capacity limit of US$300m. The capital is being put to work immediately to plant fast-growing eucalyptus in Paraguay. “What we are doing is a pure forestry fund,” Forsen says. “The middle class is growing, and consumption of timber will increase, with consumers increasingly searching for sustainable products. “We cannot find a material other than wood that can fill this demand. We can use trees for energy [ethanol], plywood or solid wood, and the range of usage is widening. My shirts have 50% wood in them, and I sleep in sheets made with food fibre.” More >> 
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