Stora Enso uses Azure data services to build a renewable future and accelerate sustainable business transformation

“We work with acres and acres of forest but without data and AI, we wouldn’t be able to maximize the value that this huge resource has to offer.”

Jenni Kuusivuori, Head of Platform and Delivery of the Nature Tech Unit at Stora Enso, is explaining why data and AI has become the backbone of the organization’s operations. As a forerunner of the renewable products industry, the company relies on Gen AI technology to compliment the work they do and compensate for where manual processes fall short. 

“Biodiversity is always evolving,” continues Kuusivuori, “and we can’t see everything within a forest site. We need to take samples and create models using AI to work out how we can best use our natural resources.”

Stora Enso collaborated with Microsoft on an initiative that saw the company build an AI-powered platform using Microsoft Intelligent Data platform and Azure data services. It allows the organization to collect, manage and analyze data across the value chain in an efficient way.

“One of the value drivers for our customers is that our raw materials are sustainable and we can transparently show where they come from,” adds Kuusivuori. “To do this we need to have data going through every stage of the process.”

Unearthing the potential of data and AI 

Stora Enso is one of the biggest private forest owners in the world with 1.5 million hectares at its fingertips in Sweden, and joint ventures in South America, Finland, and Central Europe. With 20,000 employees globally, it's an industry leader in renewable products in packaging, biomaterials, and building solutions and provides high-end solutions to some of the biggest global household names.

There is a lot of public forest data available to Stora Enso but it’s not sufficient enough, so the company started to wonder how to improve it.

“We have bold ambitions to be biodiversity net positive,” begins Kuusivuori. “Everything we do feeds into the company’s overall sustainability strategy, as it’s an important driver for investments.”

“We have been looking into how we treat raw materials in a sustainable way and how that can feed into green value creation, not just for us, but for our customer as well,” continues Kuusivuori. 

“We’re quite different to other companies in our industry in that we own the whole value chain here at Stora Enso. We feed it with data, collecting it from the moment we harvest trees to the packaging solutions we create,” Kuusivuori adds. “But we wanted to utilize our vast amounts of data to support decision making in our purchase operations.”

Historically, the industry has been very labor-intensive, so it needed a solution to better optimize forest management and automate as many operations as possible. “Doing this means we can make more decisions from the office rather than driving to the site and doing manual valuations of the forest.”

Branching out to automation

Back in the summer of 2024, Stora Enso started collaborating with Microsoft on an initiative to automate operations and revolutionize how it uses data. 

“Discussions began with Microsoft about how we use data and AI for green value creation in a transparent way,” says Kuusivuori. “But the challenge we have is that a forest has multiple attributes that impact the data, making it difficult to standardize.”

“So we built a platform using Azure,” explains Kuusivuori. “This first helps us to optimize the data collection process. It then allows us to visualize the data and translate it into formats that are easier to understand.”

One specific use case that the platform has impacted is in data collection. The organization gets data from multiple sources such as remote sensing from above the canopy to machine sensors at ground level and combines them with AI. This builds an accurate digital twin of the forest, enabling Stora Enso to map and model the ecosystem, improving performance and prediction insights. This simulation allows for faster, more in-depth decision making without having to send teams to the forest to manually look at the site.

“We can continuously monitor our data to measure how we are using it to help us reach KPIs, which in turn enables data-driven green value creation—whether that’s in terms of efficiency, sustainability, or financially,” says Kuusivuori.

“But I think one of the interesting aspects of our transformation has been the impact this has had internally,” explains Kuusivuori. “We are moving away from manual processes, and this automation changes the way our employees work and treat data. Change management has been successful for us because we now have the data to show the positive outcomes that automation brings. It will take time for everyone to trust the numbers in from of them.”

Sharing knowledge to unlock opportunities

Another way that Stora Enso confirmed the importance of data and AI was by taking part in the Microsoft Enablement Program on ‘AI data-driven green value creation.’

Led in collaboration with PwC and University of Oxford, the enablement training program has helped 1,369 leaders so far to “speak the language” on data, AI, and environmental initiatives empowering sustainability professionals to become more data savvy while helping data scientists become more aware of sustainability. This prepares leaders from organizations across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa for the shift in sustainability towards AI data-driven green value creation.

“For me, this training helped to confirm the business was on the right track,” says Kuusivuori. “It was great to meet everyone and to hear the scientific and academic perspective that correlates the impact between data, AI, and green value creation.”

“I also came away with a deeper understanding of ESG and how we need to move away from working with estimations and Excel spreadsheets, towards automation, transparency, and evidenced results,” adds Kuusivuori. “This really adds credibility from an investor perspective.”

Inspiring each other to innovate

“Alongside training programs, we’ve found success by exploring what data and AI can do as a collective with Microsoft,” says Kuusivuori. “We’ve really come together as an organization to address the needs of the business from a company perspective. Knowing that there is extra support and expertise available is so important. We are always looking into new possibilities to utilize new innovations to power improvements in nature technology.”

The relationship between Microsoft and Stora Enso is collaborative, as the latter often shares its expertise to help develop products to better serve the industry as it rapidly evolves.

“With Microsoft we are defining new areas that we can address and improve together,” says Kuusivuori. “It’s crucial that we work with another company who shares our vision for the future—and is just as excited by the potential of data-driven green value creation.” 

Building the foundation for a renewable future

As Stora Enso continues to unlock the potential of data and AI, they have many more initiatives and projects in the pipeline. These aim to improve forest asset management, optimize land use, and increase efficiency to edge them closer to their broader goals. 

“We’re always looking for ways to see how data can help make operations more sustainable,” says Kuusivuori. “A lot of companies focus on reducing their emissions and while that is vital, there are so many other aspects that lead to green value creation, like improving biodiversity or carbon storage.”

“By having a robust strategy and a more holistic view of how data can be connected to and improve different parts of the organization,” Kuusivuori adds, “it can open up new revenue streams for the business, so you rely less on investment.”

As time goes on, Kuusivuori believes there will be a restructuring and reimagining of how things are done and ways of working, not just at the company, but in the industry as business leaders see the powerful capabilities of data and AI.

“I think we are more at the beginning of our journey than the end,” considers Kuusivuori. “The potential value we can create is probably multiple times more than what we’ve been doing so far.”