As we enter a new year, it’s a good moment to reflect on 2024 and set our sights on what kind of future we envision at Walki for 2025 and beyond.
2024 was a journey of progress for us in many ways. Oji Corporation’s acquisition of Walki was completed in April, and we devoted a fair amount of time and energy to ensure a smooth integration process. It has been inspiring to see how quickly our teams have come together, combining expertise, energy, and a shared commitment to sustainable progress. With the integration process behind us, we are now entering an exciting phase that is all about creating real synergies and working together for a sustainable future.
▲ From left to right: Ono-san, Leif Frilund and Mori-san.
The European Union has been at the forefront of developing regulations that push for sustainable solutions across industries. The Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive is a critical driver shaping the future of materials and the packaging industry, requiring brand owners to ensure that all packaging is recyclable by 2030.
These efforts have laid the groundwork for transformative change, encouraging innovation in materials for a circular future. The EU’s focus is now shifting from policy development to implementation. The challenge now lies in turning these frameworks into actionable, scalable solutions that deliver real-world impact.
Our role is to innovate solutions for this circular future. We believe that it will be fibre-based, and we continue to invest both in R&D and in our production assets to help our customers future-proof their businesses in this regard. Our starting point in R&D is that everything must be designed for recycling.
Investments for the Future
We have taken into use our state-of-the-art production line that was inaugurated last summer in Steinfurt, Germany. It caters to the growing demand for fibre-based glue laminates and dispersion coating that help our customers make the transition to sustainable materials.
Through various customer cases, we have seen that fibre-based solutions can compete with—and even outperform—traditional materials in many key applications. This year, some of our most exciting projects revolved around replacing the use of plastics with fibre-based options. One case that comes to mind is a secondary packaging material we made for the French dairy cooperative Laita.
Parallel to delivering on our belief that the future is fibre-based, we remain pragmatic about the role plastics play in some challenging applications. We are mindful that our plastics solutions must also be designed for recycling and, where possible, derived from natural polymers or made of easily recyclable monomaterials. It’s not about choosing one material over the other; it’s about reimagining a portfolio of different materials to meet the demands of sustainable products without compromising functionality.
In line with this belief, we have invested in our Ylöjärvi plant in Finland to secure the production of compostable films and to increase our capacity. Together with our plant in Murcia, Spain, we can cater swiftly to customers across all of Europe.
Although the construction business overall has been in a bit of a bind in 2024, we are excited to see our insulation facings faring so well. Partially driven by energy efficiency regulations coming into place, construction owners are increasingly looking for ways to minimize energy use and eventually to reduce CO2 emissions. Insulation is a very efficient way to achieve this, as evidenced by the heightened demand for our insulation solutions. Hence, we are increasing our capacity with a new investment in our plant in Duffel, Belgium. Together with our next-generation production line in Valkeakoski, we are well poised to meet this growing demand.
Collaboration and Gathering Data
Over the years, we have clearly seen that the shift to a circular economy does not happen in isolation. We collaborate with our customers, policymakers, and academic researchers to accelerate the adoption of circular materials. During 2024, we entered a strategic partnership with Lactips, a French startup that develops and produces industrial plastic-free natural polymers. Together, we are developing paper-based food packaging material with a polymer coating based on casein.
The more we understand about our shared challenges, the more every one of us can do something about them. In 2024, we started offering sustainability courses to our employees on various sustainability topics. In team discussions, employees had the chance to think about how sustainability challenges can be translated into practical actions.
Collecting valuable data across our value chain has been a focal point in 2024 to ensure that we get relevant and easily comparable data to help us improve. In fact, within this data, we found ways to make tweaks to our Walki®Wico construction facing, substantially lowering its carbon footprint.
This year, we also made the commitment to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), which is perhaps the most well-established, objective validation organization pushing companies to work toward GHG emission reduction targets ambitious enough to meet the Paris Agreement.
We have also seen how data has helped further improve our safety statistics. The more you know, the more you can do to improve. Our lost time to accidents frequency is on a consistent downward trend, and we are determined to keep it going. We want everyone to return home safely every single day!
What Lies Ahead in 2025 and Beyond?
2024 was a turbulent year in many ways, with significant geopolitical and economic challenges shaping the global landscape. Still, we must not lose sight of our collective responsibility to drive the world towards a more sustainable future. The road ahead will demand bold action. For us, that means that we will continue to invest in pioneering innovations and new production assets to support our customers make the transition to a fibre-based future.
We must think bigger and act faster, driving innovations that can scale globally. To make this happen, the consolidation wave—one of the most recent ones occurred in December with the announcement of Amcor and Berry joining forces to create one of the biggest packaging companies in the world—will continue. We will be an active party in this consolidation and are constantly on the lookout for companies to acquire to accelerate our mission of advancing circularity and a low-carbon future.
In 2025 and beyond, we’ll double down on exploring new technologies, expanding our collaborations, and ensuring that everything we do is designed for recycling.
The challenges we face—climate change, resource scarcity, and waste—are immense. But so are the opportunities to create real, lasting solutions. I’m confident that we are well-positioned to lead this transformation, thanks to the passion and dedication of our team, new owners, customers, and partners.
