Sustainability and innovation

Sustainability, innovation, and quality are central in all our solutions such as compostable food and beverage processing and packaging materials, filtration solutions for engines and energy storage applications, diagnostic materials, protective surgical fabrics, and water filters.

We strive to deliver true customer value to ensure competitiveness and growth. We improve our existing products, design new solutions, offer custom-made specialized fiber-based materials and explore emerging technologies, for a more sustainable world.

Sustainability is at the core of what we do

As a global leader in innovative fiber-based solutions, sustainability is at the core of what we do. We recently introduced a more ambitious sustainability strategy with corresponding targets. From now on, our goal is that all new product introductions should serve our purpose to Purify and Protect, with Every Fiber, for a Sustainable World. While the sustainability strategy spans across environmental, social and governance factors, special focus is on immediate improvements in climate performance. Ahlstrom will commit to 1.5°C Science-Based Target towards 2030 and to Net Zero emissions by 2050 the latest.

Our sustainability strategy is summarized in the image below:

Innovation – One of our competitive advantages

As a producer of fiber-based specialty materials; innovation and product development are the core of value creation. Innovation enables Ahlstrom to constantly improve its offering of products, technologies and services to address sustainable functionality and design.

We deliver fiber-based specialty materials with high added value that are oriented towards customer requirements and needs. Typically, the materials form an important part of an end-product or perform crucial tasks in a production process. The long-term collaboration in product development with customers forms the basis for unlocking the potential of what fiber-based materials can do.

We have set as a target that all new products in development are assessed with the EcoDesign Tool and that all have a positive EcoDesign score by 2025, meaning their environmental impact is lower than a reference product’s. In 2021, 100% of new products in development were assessed with the tool, and 83% of the new products had a positive score, meaning their environmental impact is lower than a reference product’s. Additionally, our sustainability strategy establishes that all our new product introductions should aim to serve our purpose to Purify and Protect, with Every Fiber, for a Sustainable World.

We also aim for sales from new products launched during the last three years to reach 25% by 2025.