Where does Unilin source its wood?
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Wood is one of Unilin's most crucial raw materials but that doesn't mean our production units rely on a steady supply of fresh wood. On the contrary. “We are Belgium's largest wood recycling company”, says Lasse Six, sustainability expert at Unilin.
In a nutshell:
- Unilin works almost exclusively with recycled or reclaimed wood
- What little fresh wood we do use is sourced from sustainable forestry
- Our mission: keep wood in the materials cycle as long as possible
It's fair to say that Unilin has a genuine love of wood. A passion even. That's not surprising as many of our products use wood as a basic raw material. This passion translates into a transparent vision of our approach to wood. Sustainable and with as little fresh wood in the production process as possible. So where does the wood come from?
Lasse, could you start by telling us which Unilin products require wood?
Lasse: “We mainly use wood for laminate and parquet flooring, MDF and HDF boards and chipboards. A small portion goes to our insulating roof elements.”
If it's not fresh wood, where does it come from?
“There are two options: the wood is either recycled or reclaimed. In the first case we are talking about waste wood. Think of worn pallets or wood from demolition works, old furniture that you take to your local waste recycling centre in Belgium or the Netherlands, … The content in this category varies a great deal in terms of quality. Clean, raw wood such as pallets or fruit boxes are category A waste wood. This wood is easy to recycle but meanwhile we've made significant technological advances.
Over the past decade we invested millions in the development of the most cutting-edge cleaning and sorting machine currently available in our industry. This enables us to recycle large quantities of wood, making us the country's largest wood recycling company.
Reclaimed wood is waste wood that has no further applications and would be incinerated if we didn't put it to good use. Wood pruned during verge maintenance along the motorway is just one example. Tree trunks and branches that are too small or bent for other applications can still be used in our production sites in Belgium and France. For instance, we process them in our MDF boards which consist of 100% reclaimed wood.”
Does this mean not a single tree is cleared for certain products?
“Hardly any, but it is necessary sometimes for our parquet floors. Our parquet has a 3mm oak top layer. The high-quality wood we use for this purpose is FSC certified, meaning it is sourced from sustainable forestry. So this oak wood is also a sustainable raw material and what's more, it stimulates foresters to also plant oak trees, which grow at a much slower rate than softwood.
This parquet flooring is manufactured in Malaysia and the core layer consists of rubber tree wood, for example. Actually, you could also call this reclaimed wood as it is sourced from local rubber trees that no longer produce enough rubber. After 25 years the rubber plantations log these trees to make room for younger, more productive specimens. We prolong the life of this wood by processing it into parquet flooring.”
So you go the extra mile to manufacture sustainable wood products. But I understand there's more?
“Absolutely. We aim to keep wood in circulation as long as possible and prolong its useful life as much as we can. Our chipboards consisting of 95% recycled wood are a huge step in the right direction but obviously it doesn't stop there. Our next goal is to do the same with our MDF and HDF boards. Until recently it was impossible to recycle MDF and HDF boards and laminate (which uses HDF boards as a base) on an industrial scale.
In 2021 we succeeded in developing a new and innovative process, making us the first player in the world to recycle this material after all and reuse it for the production of new panel material. We now want to further develop and scale up this technology, for instance for the production of our decorative Evola panels or Quick-Step laminate floors.”
In order to implement a structural sustainable approach on a global scale, Unilin recently launched its sustainability strategy ‘One Home’.
The strategy is designed to get all divisions on the same page as we strive to make Unilin a circular and sustainable company. We have steep ambitions!