CPHI Frankfurt 2025: Fiber-Based Packaging for Sustainability

Sustainability in pharmaceutical manufacturing has become a prominent reason for certain decisions made by pharmaceutical companies and contract manufacturers. Companies have set out to meet certain environmental standards set by regulators and the companies themselves.

Choices in pharmaceutical packaging materials play a role in these sustainability efforts. Pharmaceutical Technology® spoke with Maija Pohjakallio, VP, Climate and Circular Economy, Metsä Group, before her presentation at CPHI Frankfurt 2025, to learn more about fiber-based packaging and how it can help pharmaceutical companies meet their sustainability goals.

“By definition, fiber-based packaging means packaging that is made of paper or paper board. Paper and paper board is made from pulp, and the typical raw material for pulp is wood,” Pohjakallio explains. “First of all, the wood has to be sourced from some sustainable sources. All the wood procured by Metsä Group and Metsä Board comes from either certified forests or forests that meet the requirements of controlled origin. The wood that is procured is also utilized in a sustainable way, meaning that the thickest part of the trees (i.e., the logs are utilized for making mechanical wood products, and then the thinner parts, which don't qualify for timber and construction elements that's utilized for making pulp.”

“A very important question related to packaging is that by optimizing your packaging solutions, you can reduce your scope three emissions,” she continues. “And regarding fiber-based packaging, there are two very important elements that actually have a big influence on the carbon footprint on the packaging. One is the share of fossil free energy utilized in the production. And the other one is material efficiency. If you use less fibers in making the packaging of same properties, of course, that means better carbon footprint.”

Pohjakallio will be presenting the Keynote session, “Sustainability in a Shifting World: Communicating with Clarity, Acting with Purpose”, at CPHI Frankfurt on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025 at 11AM in Hall 4–4.0G36. She will also be participating in the panel session, “From Compliance to Competitive Advantage: Navigating CSRD and CSDDD”, on Tuesday, Oct. 28 at 4PM in Hall 4–4.0G36. The same day there will also be a small group discussion moderated by Maija on sustainable packaging solutions at 2.00-2:30 PM (Group Discussion 1/Table 1).

Click the above video to watch the full interview.

About the speaker

Maija Pohjakallio works as VP, Climate and Circular Economy, at Metsä Group. She also teaches about materials and sustainability at the University of Turku.

Transcript

Editor's note: This transcript is a direct, unedited rendering of the original audio/video content. It may contain errors, informal language, or omissions as spoken in the original recording.

Hello. My name is Mijia and I work as a vice president of climate and circular economy at Metsa Group, and thanks a lot for the invitation to join this interview. Real pleasure. I'm based in Finland, in our headquarters in Espoo, and Metsa Group is a forest company.

What makes us a bit unique is that our parent company is metzalith cooperative, owned by over 90,000 Finnish forest owners. Altogether, we are over 9000 people working at metza Group, but all our production takes place in Europe, and I've been working at Metsa Group for a bit more than four years. But in the beginning of my career, I was working in research and teaching, and also currently I'm doing some teaching at the University of Turku part time, and I teach about materials and sustainability.

Metsa Group has five business areas, and one of them is meta board. Metsa broad produces paper boards for packaging applications, especially for pharma sectors, food sector and cosmetic sector.

Sustainability has been a focus for a lot of pharmaceutical companies in the past few years. How much of this effort has been focused on pharmaceutical packaging?

You increasing amount of pharma companies have a holistic approach to sustainability, and this is driven, for example, by the way sustainability is assessed.

For example, when a company is assessing its greenhouse gas emissions, it's about assessing scope one, scope two and scope three. And scope one and scope two emissions are related to companies, own operations and purchase electricity, whereas scope three is the rest, meaning the value chain emissions, both downstream and upstream and reducing the scope three emissions in that optimizing your packaging solutions plays a crucial role.

Actually, according to a study by McKinsey, 75% of the greenhouse gas emissions of a typical pharma company originates from scope three.

Also, there is a lot of development in packaging and packaging waste regulation in the EU and other parts of the world as well, and that one also drives companies to focus on packaging solutions. For example, in in the Europe, packaging and packaging waste regulation was adopted recently, and it says that all packaging has to be recyclable by 2030 it also gives rules how you have to, for example, have modulated extended producer responsibility fees, and that how you must avoid over packaging.

What is fiber based packaging, and how can it help pharma companies reach their sustainability goals?

By definition, fiber based packaging means packaging that is made of paper or paper board, and paper and paper board is made from pulp, and the typical raw material for pulp is wood.

First of all, the wood has to be sustained, has to be sourced from some.

Sustainable sources. And here in Finland and in the northern forestry, it, for example, means that forests are taken care of and and the wood that is procured is utilized in a sustainable way, meaning that the thickest part of the wood that the logs they are utilized for making mechanical food products, and then the thinner parts, which don't qualify for for timber and construction elements that's utilized for making pulp food.

And if you think of fiber based packaging, one of the great advantages of fiber based packaging is that it's the recyclability of paperboard packaging is really good. For example, in the EU, there's just a new statistic published that in 2023 the recycling rate of fiber based packaging in EU was 86.6% which is really high.

Another very important question related to packaging is that by optimizing your packaging solutions, you can reduce your scope three emissions. And regarding fiber based packaging, there are two very important elements that actually have a big influence on the carbon footprint on the packaging. And the other one is the the share of fossil free energy utilized in the production. And the other one is material efficiency.

For us, if you use less fibers in making the packaging of same properties, of course, that means better carbon footprint. And for example, Metsa board they are aiming. We are aiming that by 2030 all our meals would utilize 100% fossil free energy, and at the moment, the figure is already 89 so at the moment, 89% of the energy utilized in our meals in production is fossil free. And we at metabo, we also pay a lot of attention to light weighting, meaning that with less fibers, you can do more.

In what ways is the drive for sustainability, influencing facility design, process selection and sourcing strategies, strategies and how are companies measuring environmental progress?

An important way to measure your sustainability is to calculate your greenhouse gas emissions, and it means calculating or assessing your scope one, scope two and scope three emissions. And by optimizing the packaging solutions, you can really have a great impact reduce your scope, three emissions. And that, of course, is very How would I say, important and dictated a lot by the sourcing, sourcing actors and the supply chains, how they are formed within the company.

And according to a study by McKinsey of the overall greenhouse gasses of a typical pharma company, up to 75% originates from scope three. So this kind of a sourcing policies play a crucial role in sustainable development. And of course, if we are thinking about scope three emissions, collaboration is key. Collaborating with your suppliers and with your customers, that's that's the way, and that's the power to really develop more sustainable practices.

What can you tell me about your presentation at cphi, and what are you looking forward to at the event this year?

I'm really excited to present so to give a keynote and to participate a panel on the 28th in Frankfurt, and my keynote will be about sustainability in the sifting world. So it's it's an undeniable fact that the mankind we all, we have to kind of focus more on respecting the planetary boundaries.

And we need a green transition, which means not.

Only transitioning to more sustainable ways to utilize energy and materials, but it also means the way we look at value and data,

and I will be presenting different types of companies approaches to ESG, and also talking about how it can be a strategic choice to bring sustainability in the core of your business strategy and turn it into a competitive advantage. I'll also tell some examples about meta groups and meta boards, sustainability journey, for example, how we have our 2030, sustainability targets that we are aiming to have Fossil Free mills and we are developing regenerative forestry, so meaning raising the bar of Sustainable Forest Practices here in Finland.

Then I'll give some examples how all this sustainability work and our journey is reflected in meta boards products. I will give case examples, study examples, case study examples of meta boards products and comparisons, comparative studies on carbon footprints, and I'm also very much highlighting how it's really the power of collaboration that makes the sustainability transition to happen.