The Future

Looking to the future, we will strive to retain our strong sustainability position and further improve Accoya^® wood’s outstanding environmental performance. With this in mind, we are continuously innovating and researching ways in which this can be achieved on various levels – most notably in terms of factory efficiency and local wood sourcing.
With our environmentally sound production process in place and the continuous improvements mentioned above, we are confident that we will remain world leaders in sustainable wood technology.

Factory efficiency
Improving efficiency within our plant in Arnhem in order to achieve higher batch volumes, shorter batch times, lower energy consumption, improved renewable energy content and best practice systems with respect to waste water treatment is an ongoing goal. We are also investigating ways to directly recycle by-product acetic acid and upgrade it to acetic anhydride on site, for a closed loop system.

Local wood sourcing
We are conducting various studies to better understand and further reduce the environmental impact of greenhouse gas emissions caused by our timber sourcing and to help our customers and other stakeholders to make more informed decisions. As a result, we have developed the Timber Transport Emissions Calculator (TTEC) which is publicly available here.

Radiata Pine, sourced from a variety of locations, is the species currently used to produce Accoya^®. The TTEC shows that, although the intercontinental transport distance may be high, in many instances the annual transport emissions of acetylated Radiata Pine are competitive when compared with various continentally-sourced timber species, as the graph below shows. This is due to the efficient low emissions transport used (sea transport), low weight, and lifespan improvement through acetylation. For more detailed background information please refer to the TTEC.

Figure: Comparison of the greenhouse gas emissions for the transport of Accoya^® made from Radiata Pine from New Zealand and Western Red Cedar from Washington State USA, divided by the expected lifespan (20 years for WRC, 50 years for Accoya^®).

Nevertheless, by using local wood species for Accoya^® production, transport emissions may be lowered further and many tests are currently underway to determine the feasibility of the acetylation of locally grown species in each major market.

In the near future a number of commercial acetylation facilities, under license from Accsys Technologies, will be established worldwide.  These facilities will also be based upon the acetylation of local, fast-growing softwood species. This should further improve the environmental sustainability of Accoya^® through local wood sourcing.

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