Iggesund Paperboard, the maker of the high-end cardbords Invercote and Incada, continues investing in environmental issues. Next goal: the total elimination of all fossil carbon emissions from the company’s paperboard mill at Workington in the UK. A total of £108 million (123 million euros) will be called up in order to switch the whole mill’s energy supply from fossil natural gas to biofuels.

The switch is already well advanced in Sweden, where a new recovery boiler at the company’s mill at Iggesund allow all the production at the mill to be biofuel driven and also to be self-sufficient in electricity. The investment at Workington means that the same approach will be used in the company’s UK facility.

A radical change of energy system for £108m will make Iggesund’s production of paperboard at Workington free from fossil carbon emissions.

“Our two paperboard mills will have a unique position in the market,” comments Björn Kvick, President of Iggesund Paperboard. “Whether a customer wants solid bleached board such as the Invercote we produce in Sweden or Incada, the folding box board we produce in the UK, we can offer a world-class product with regard to low fossil carbon emissions. And this is in addition to all the other benefits our products offer.”

The planned biofuel plant at Workington is being dimensioned for a thermal output of 150 MW and will supply all the mill’s energy needs, both as electricity and as thermal energy in the form of steam.

“This investment proves very clearly our ambition to develop our paperboard production at Workington,” comments Ola Schultz-Eklund, Managing Director at Workington, who was the driving force behind upgrading the mill’s energy supply. “Last year we also invested 3.6 million pounds in rebuilding the refiners in our pulp mill,” he says. “That reduced our electricity consumption by thirteen percent, but even more importantly it has created the conditions for us to further improve the quality of Incada.”

Over the past decade or so, Iggesund has invested almost £100 million in developing paperboard production at Workington. Each year the mill produces 200,000 tonnes of the folding box board Incada and employs close to 400 people.