Tornator launches Green Finance Framework

Forestry company Tornator Oyj aims to highlight corporate responsibility in its financing as well as its operational activities. Today, Tornator is publishing a Green Finance Framework through which it intends to seek majority of its debt financing in the future.

The framework is aimed at debt investors, providing them with assurance of and describing Tornator’s actions and goals on behalf of responsible, climate-friendly forestry. Tornator wants to provide investors with a transparent opportunity to evaluate and compare investments considered important to climate change and other global challenges. Tornator’s vision includes being a forerunner in responsible forestry; the Green Finance Framework is a natural way of demonstrating the company’s commitment to developing the relationship between forestry and the financial markets.

As testimony to Tornator’s sustainable approach to forestry, the company has been awarded both of the most recognised forest certificates internationally, the PEFC™ and FSC®. The Green Finance Framework, and bonds and loans obtained on its basis, will reinforce the company’s position as a responsible forestry player with its sights set far into the future. In addition to Tornator’s own corporate responsibility principles, the sustainable development principles of the UN served as a basis for the Green Finance Framework. When drawing up the framework, Tornator took account of both the ICMA’s green bond principles and the forestry category of the EU’s taxonomy for sustainable development activities.

On the basis of its Green Finance Framework, Tornator can take out bonds and loans for the re-financing of current forest investments or for new forest acquisitions, and the related infrastructure investments and possible R&D projects. The framework also covers green financing promoting the conservation and development of forest nature in areas such as species diversity and mire restoration.

Tornator will post yearly reports on its website, detailing the bonds and loans taken out via the framework and their environmental impact. The reports will cover issues such as the development of certified forests, protected areas and forest growth. Key environmental indicators will be developed and new items added as results are known. With regard to carbon sequestration, Tornator has a strong focus on substitution calculation for various products. The company intends to publish new findings as soon as possible on the importance of wood as a substitute for fossil-based raw materials that cause climate change.

SEB acted as an advisor in the drawing up of Tornator’s Green Finance Framework, which was given the highest possible rating, dark green, by the independent evaluator CICERO in its “Shades of Green” category.

See this website for further details.

For further information please contact:

Henrik Nieminen, CEO, tel. +358 (0)40 869 7613

Antti Siirtola, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), tel. +358 (0)40 773 0975

Tornator is a leading company specialised in sustainable forestry in Europe. It owns forests in Finland, Estonia and Romania. In 2018, the Group’s net sales were some €113 million, and the balance sheet value was about €1.6 billion. The Group has about 180 employees. In total, its forests directly provide work for the company’s employees as well as contractors and their staff worth some 1,000 person-years. The parent company’s shareholders are Finnish investors, mostly institutions. Tornator’s mission is “generating sustainable well-being from the forest”.

Finland FSC-C123368

Estonia FSC-C132610

Romania FSC-C132426