How is Södra using data?

Its most visible AI use is in its members' forest management plans, and its other documented data programme automates sustainability reporting. Södra is a cooperative that had 52,262 forest-owner members at the end of 2025. Its 2025 annual and sustainability report calls the plan "a key tool to facilitate planning and decisions about the forest". The report describes a new planning app for tablets that "combines remote sensing and automated forestry data with AI models". The aim is "high accuracy and frequent data updates", and less "need for field measurements". Plans also matter for certification, which requires one above a size threshold. Separately, Södra has worked with KPMG and Microsoft to automate the collection of sustainability data.

What the usual answer says

The top results are Södra's legal page, KPMG's client story on sustainability data, and a university news item on a data analysis project. General descriptions say Södra uses data to support members, plan forestry, manage wood supply and improve mill efficiency. The report's own account puts weight on the plan.

The plan as the data product

The 2025 report sets out the change under the heading "Smarter planning with AI and new app". The aim is "to provide members with better and more up-to-date information about their forests". The report lists what the app enables. It brings "improved planning efficiency with digital tools", "high-quality, automated forestry data", and more information for members in their online forest account.

The plans do more than advise. They carry nature conservation targets, which the report sets "based on an analysis of the need for measures for the voluntary set-asides" in members' plans. And they are a condition of certification above a size threshold. A current plan therefore feeds member decisions, wood trade, certification and conservation reporting at once.

The annual report says the affiliated forest area grew by about 27,000 hectares in 2025. A footnote in the year-end report adds that Södra is "exploring the possibility of using remotely sensed data for the affiliated forest area", which could change how that figure is estimated. The first-quarter 2026 report puts membership at 52,197.

Other uses

In sustainability reporting, a KPMG client story describes "a new solution" built with KPMG and Microsoft "that automates the collection of sustainability data within the organization". It says "Södra has freed up time to analyze its sustainability data and make better decisions", with data "in real time" that was previously collected "less frequently and via time-consuming" manual work. It is the consultancy's account.

In harvesting, the report says "new technology using laser radar (LIDAR: light detection and ranging) provides harvester operators with real-time forest data", and that the equipment is being tested on two forest machines. In safety, a data bot helps managers analyse data for insights and trends, which the report says "helps us to predict and avoid accidents". Across the group, an efficiency programme is described alongside "greater focus on AI and digital opportunities".

Why the plan matters for data

For a cooperative of many small owners, no single inventory covers the forest. Each owner's plan is the record. If plans are years old, every decision built on them, from wood trade to certification, rests on stale data. Producing plans from remote sensing and models lowers the cost of keeping them current. The risk is model error in stands that differ from what the model learned. The report's claim of "high accuracy" is the company's own. The practical check is to compare modelled and measured volumes where field work still happens, stand by stand.

Checking the model

A cooperative that buys its members' wood already holds the check. When a harvest from a member's forest is scaled, the measured volume can be set against the plan's modelled estimate for that stand. Across many harvests, those comparisons show where the model is reliable and where field checks are still needed. The report doesn't say whether Södra runs that comparison.

When it doesn't apply

Large single owners run their own inventory cycles. Södra's mills use data the report describes only briefly, and ranking the plan above other data uses is our judgement. The planning app is new, so its accuracy in use is not yet reported.

Quarri for forest management is built around how a forest operation runs, from the cruise to the settled account.

Quarri is an AI-native data platform for the timber supply chain. It connects buying, production, sales and inventory for forest management, sawmill, wood products and pulp, paper and packaging operators.