Stora Enso: leading the sustainable future with great solutions

Vol 27, Issue 16, 31 January 2025

As part of the “New Business Environment”, we have had guests from the company called “Stora Enso”. The sales manager from this company, Rasel Khan, along with the sourcing manager, Vasilii Ovchinnikov, were telling us about the company, its mission, vision, and values.

As their website says, “Stora Enso is a leading provider of renewable products in packaging, biomaterials, and wooden construction.” In other words, they are making various products from renewable sources, mostly wood. Climate change, circularity, and resource scarcity are some of the biggest and most relevant megatrends nowadays, and they are the ones that drive the Stora Enso company. As speakers said, there is a certain market demand for companies to transform from minimising their environmental impact to maximising their positive effect on the Earth. That is why their job is so crucial according to today’s customers’ needs. 

Basically, we all have used Stora Enso’s products at some point in our lives. They are surrounding us on a daily basis. An example of that would be juice packages, cosmetics, paper cups, boxes, and wrappers. For me personally, it was quite shocking, because I have never heard of this company but most certainly have used their product.  

Most of their products are made of wood. Their philosophy is that they plant more trees than they harvest, ensuring that they are utilizing sources responsibly. They possess over 2 million hectares of wood globally, planting them in Finland, Sweden, Latvia, Brazil, and China. Caring is at the heart of their production. In 2023, their forests grew by nearly 12.8 million m3. This number clearly speaks better than any words and mottoes.

However, the year 2023 was quite challenging for them in many aspects. They had to discontinue paper division, because it has been facing a decline for many years. Instead, they concentrated on the areas where they are perfectly excelling, such as renewable packaging and construction building. Stora Enso has had all kinds of projects around the world in different countries. Their materials served a purpose for residential, hotels, education, health, and commercial as well.  

After giving a presentation about themselves and the company, speakers gave us a task about solving two issues — sales and sourcing. The sales issue was about how they could become number one worldwide and what the climate is today. Meanwhile, the sourcing issue was about strategic purchasing, sustainability, and service. The point was to give a short, approximately 2-minute presentation where you would share ideas on solving those issues. All students did really well with that task, offering the speakers valuable insights and suggestions.

To sum up, the Store Enso company has a great future, successfully making its way onto the leading positions through competitive advantage and their values. As the demand for renewable sources increases nowadays, their profit and public recognition will enhance even more.