Carter Holt Harvey Kinleith Pulp and Paper Mill - an example of a modern integrated mill pursuing best practice, sustainable, environmental management based on a renewable resource base [New Zealand]

This paper will identify a number of the business and environmental issues facing the pulp and paper industry in general and look at how Carter Holt Harvey's Kinleith mill is positioning itself to address these. In doing so it will attempt to show the opportunity the industry has to overturn its image as environmental villain and become a best practice and profitable example of sustainable environmental management. It will promote the concept of sustainable environmental management as an essential component of any investment in forest based business if that business is to provide sustainble returns to its shareholders and contribute real economic and social value to the community that allows it to carry out its activities into a future where the real costs of pollution and waste will measured much more rigorously. Carter Holt Harvey's Kinleith Mill is located near Tokoroa in the middle of the North Island, New Zealand. It is surrounded by 155,000 hectares of the Kinleith plantation radiata pine forest from which it sources a large portion of its renewable fibre resource. The mill currently produces a total of 450,000 tonnes of product per annum made up of 205,000 tonnes of Kraft pulp and 250,000 tonnes of Kraft based container materials. It is bounded by the Waikato river (largest river in NZ) from which it sources its water and most of its renewable water-driven sustainable electrical energy in conjunction with its own new 35 megawatt co-generation plant fueled by pine bark on a sustainable basis. Its position on a scenic trout bearing river acts as a check-point on the water-borne effluent from the mill which must meet standards that are constantly monitored by Waikato Valley Authority staff as well as CHH's own scientists and are measured literally by the health of the trout in the river less than 2 miles than 2 miles downstream of the mill's water treatment plant. Being bounded also by state highway one the emissions from the mill are under constant public scrutiny and subject to complaint by the public to the ministry of environment. The Kinleith Mill was one of the first 10 mills to implement Elemental Chlorine Free bleaching process in 1991. Since then a number of ongoing initiatives have continued to reduce environmental discharges to a level where the mill ranked in the world's top 10 in a best practice benchmarking study carried out by Simons Conculting Group in January 1996. In December 1996 a NZ$313 million modernisation upgrade was announced which will see both the pulp and apaper machines upgraded with state of the art technology and new componentry which will increase output to a total of 650,000 tonnes per annum. Over NZ$50 million of this sum will be spent on equipemtn and process technology that will directly contribute to improving the environmental performance of the mill. The modernisation programme will enable the Kinleith Mill to enhance its international competitiveness based on the principles of sustaianability and responsible environmental management in conjunction with new team-based work systems it will provide the tools and processes to enable continual improvement in operational and environmental performance. In turn the productivity gains and the environmental compliance capability will ensure that returns to shareholders will be enhance on a sustainable long term basis.