Forest R&D
Sonae Arauco aspires to be a global reference in the context of greater demand for sustainable solutions, where wood serves as a great alternative to other materials.
In this regard, we have been working on an ambitious and innovative strategy for forests in Portugal, leading R&D projects and integrating work groups to develop and ensure the transfer of knowledge for the management of this natural asset, thereby ensuring its sustainable development.
The future of this sector is increasingly dependent on our ability to take advantage of the territory to generate value through sustainable forestry and the industrialisation of wood and other products, helping to settle populations inland and preserving ecosystems and ways of life.
- Rui Correia, CEO
More information about the project
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Sonae Arauco's forestry R&D project assesses the resilience of pine species and provenance
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Sonae Arauco creates a pioneer R&D project to support forest producers
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Sonae Arauco plants 21,600 pine trees in the second stage of its forest R&D Project
R&D project on radiata pine and maritime pine
In 2020, Sonae Arauco launched a Research & Development (R&D) project aimed at helping forest producers significantly increase their production in order to enhance forest investment, thus contributing to reversing the falling trend of pine areas in Portugal.
This pioneering project contemplates more than 200,000 seeds from 136 families of radiata pine and maritime pine from four genetic improvement programmes (Portugal, Spain, France and Chile) and aims to test the plants’ behaviour in different soil and climate conditions in Portugal.
The first phase, which ran until mid-February 2021, involved growing the plants in a forest nursery, followed by its plantation in six different locations on a total area of 35 hectares in central and northern Portugal.
The first results suggest that radiata pine plants from Chile are more resilient in the Portuguese setting. These plants had a very positive performance in all environments and soils where the test is being carried out and even proved more resilient than other pine species/provenances previously introduced in Portugal. To minimize the effect of the climate on the results, the process was repeated in 2022.
Soon, an assessment will be carried out regarding the individual growth of each tree, starting the process of identifying the families and provenances of maritime pine or radiata pine with the highest productivity for each type of climate and soil.
At a later stage, this testing area will serve as a demonstration area.
In the long run, the project is aimed at reproducing the selected plants, enabling forest producers in Portugal to access plants of high genetic quality and productivity, contributing to an increase in the profitability of the pine value chain.
Sonae Forest
Sonae Arauco participates in one of the largest carbon-offsetting projects in the business ecosystem
Sonae Arauco participates in one of the largest carbon-offsetting projects in the business ecosystem.
Over the next 30 years, Sonae Arauco will assume a central role in one of the most ambitious carbon-offsetting projects ever developed in Portugal so far. The Sonae Forest has been designed to mitigate the environmental impact of the employees' vehicle fleet, evidence of the group's commitment to carbon neutrality.
It foresees the plantation of 1 million trees in a mix of maritime pine and common oak, among other species. In the first 11 years alone, the project is expected to offset about 161 kt CO2 and lead to the afforestation of 1,189 hectares.
The three pillars of the Sonae Forest:
1
Compensation of emissions from the Group's fleet of vehicles powered by fossil fuels, until they are replaced by electric vehicles, forecast for the next ten years.
2
Constitution of a forest that will be managed over time, making it possible to make the most of the carbon retention capacity of the trees and, once they reach the maximum absorption maturity stage, use them to produce wood products and the carbon sequestration effect.
3
Promotion of biodiversity and resistance to the impact of forest fires, through forest management, and the plantation/management of several native hardwood species, including the water streams restoration.
This project is led by Sonae and made viable by the participation of several companies: in addition to Sonae Arauco, Bright Pixel, MC, Sierra, Universo, Worten, Zeitreel, NOS and Sonae Capital.
rePLANT
rePlant was a truly collaborative project, which brought together 20 entities, in three main areas of action - Forest and Fire Management, led by Sonae Arauco and Instituto Superior de Agronomia da Universidade de Lisboa, Risk Management, under the coordination of REN - Redes Energéticas Nacionais and Universidade de Coimbra), and a third pillar about Circular Economy and Value Chain, managed by CoLAB ForestWISE and The Navigator Company.
Sonae Arauco and Instituto Superior de Agronomia, School of Agriculture worked together to define which pine species and origins are more productive and more adapted to climate change, as well as finding new models of sustainable forest management for the main Portuguese forest species in order to increase their productivity, resilience to fire and adaptability to climate change.
The use of new intelligent implements for the forest, robots to help in forest cleaning operations, new smartphone applications, forest monitoring through optical cameras, new digital sensors and processes for data communication in forestry machines were the main highlights of a work developed over three years by 20 entities, including companies, universities and research centres.
This project gave a new perspective on integrated forest and fire management, based on scientific and technological knowledge, through the introduction of new, more efficient and intelligent equipment for the forest with better environmental performance.
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