Metsähallitus is an important societal actor in Finland, and modern, responsible actors of its kind are expected to measure the value they create for their stakeholders – for clients, owners and the society at large.
What makes the measuring difficult for Metsähallitus is the fact that the state-owned land and water areas we use, manage, and protect have economic, environmental, recreational and cross-generational cultural value –– and some of the different functions we perform can at times be seen as mutually conflicting. In total, 12.6 million hectares of state-owned land and water areas are under our stewardship. This accounts for almost one third of Finland’s surface area.
” When we revised our strategy last year, we wanted to start working towards a new type of value creation model.
When we revised our strategy last year, we wanted to start working towards a model which would help us identify our societal effectiveness, as well as create the conditions for responsible co-operation and sustainable solutions. We wanted to make certain that all of our stakeholders were involved, and particularly that our own personnel felt ownership of the process.
When an organization tackles a complex project like this for the first time, it helps greatly to be able to work with experienced professionals. Not only did the Gaia team have deep expertise on different types of value creation models, they were also able to provide us with invaluable perspective and background information.
We are happy with the first version of the value creation model, but we also know there is much more work to be done in deepening the model and for example taking more regional information into account. But it is now much easier to move ahead since we know the model rests on a solid foundation.
Juha S. Niemelä is the Director General of Metsähallitus.
