Once upon a time…

Decks throughout the US come in many forms, backyard, front porch, docks leading down to the river and so on. Redwood, Cedar and Ipe have been the traditional woods used in deck construction for hundreds of years. But, the first two require periodic treatment to seal and protect against moisture and of course the use of Ipe is now frowned upon due to potential illegal logging practices.  Until recently, there was little thought given as to what we now call the ‘provenance’ or source of the timber and also the long-term sustainability of this precious decking material.

The devastation of deforestation

Without getting too pessimistic, it’s worth noting that the clearing of tropical rainforests is still happening at an alarming rate, despite the best endeavors of governments around the world. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN estimates that the world has lost a billion acres of forest since 1990, mostly in Africa and South America. The Amazon Conservation group reports that destruction rose by 21 percent in 2020.  Much of this unregulated illegal activity may find its way into the back yards of innocent consumers.

Read more here on deforestation.

Accoya Color is ideal for timber decking projects in the US. Unlike slow-grown hardwoods it is sourced from sustainably sourced softwood that is FSC® certified with 100% proof of provenance. This natural softwood is then modified using our famous patented acetylation process that results in Accoya wood – in this decking product it is also now colored a beautiful grey through to the core…Accoya® Color. To achieve this, after acetylation, the newly modified timber goes through an extra dyeing process in a purpose-built facility using organic non-toxic color pigment.

Important elements for wooden decking are the durability of the material and the degree of maintenance required after installation, most of which involve chemical treatments of some kind or other. Accoya Color is just like its traditional Accoya stablemate in that it’s very low maintenance. There is no need for additional coatings (although it coats very well) and its grey color anticipates the natural silvering of wood when exposed to weathering over the years.

As Accoya Color comes with a warranty against rot and decay, even when installed in ground (a unique feature), it results in an eco-friendly timber that lasts for decades and consequently locks away carbon too. These wooden decks are 100% recyclable too after their decking life, further increasing their sustainable street-cred.

Accoya Color is available to buy in the US from a range of our official lumberyard partners that can be found on the link below.

Considering the return of wood to nature leads us on to the next key prediction, lifelong wellbeing. We must now be mindful of the entire lifecycle of the materials and building process and, beyond this, the health and wellbeing of those that work on and live in the buildings we erect. The World Green Building Council’s Six Principles for a Healthy, Sustainable Built Environment underlines the importance of the relationship between sustainable development and human wellbeing, detailing how harmony with nature and climate change action is linked to social values, including the health of construction workers.  Buildings made of wood have seen not only construction time, effort, and waste reduced by as much as 90%, but have had a positive impact on construction workers, whose exposure to the dust and toxic fumes of a regular building site is drastically lowered. Furthermore, wood buildings continue to have a positive impact on people throughout their lives as wood surfaces have been found to lower stress levels, improve attention and focus, and increase creativity. With the difficulty of the preceding two years, a movement towards design that benefits wellbeing is likely to be at the forefront of many minds.

Our final prediction is that net zero emission targets will no longer cut the mustard. With several governments and large companies committing to net zero targets, reducing emissions is a global target. However, with increasing pressure from those who recognize this may no longer be enough, we believe there will be a push towards climate positivity: removing more greenhouses gases from the atmosphere than are released. In an industry that is responsible for a large portion of global emissions, we think companies have started to notice the scale of the positive impact we could have if we pushed for these more ambitious targets.

If you’re looking for sustainable home architecture, Australia is not a bad place to start looking. This beautiful family beach house in Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, uses Accoya wood not only for its cladding, but for the decking, windows, and doors frames, too. The visual effect of this is a seamless example of indoor-outdoor living, that merges the house and the garden in an effortless show of simplicity, practicality, and elegance.  

Accoya naturally weathers to the silver-grey shade seen here, but the wood used on Portsea Beach House was coated with a bespoke stain to give the appearance of weathered Accoya from the off. Not only does this enhance the natural beauty of the materials, but their stability means that the coating will stay looking pristine for longer, extending the life of one of the most striking eco sustainable homes Australia has seen. 

You would be hard pressed to find many eco-friendly sustainable homes with a better view than this. Built for German professional surfer Flo Jung, he wanted an eco-home that would be resilient to the constant exposure to the sun and sea air of the South African coast. Built by Jung himself, he chose Accoya to fulfil these requirements, safe in the knowledge that he could return worry-free to his crack- and splinter-resistant decking from many a barefoot surfing outing. Accoya decking is guaranteed to last for 25 years, and timber siding above ground for 50, so this surfer’s paradise will continue contributing to the beauty and sustainability of this landscape for years to come. 

Grand designs are not only so because of their stature, but some through their integration of new technologies and conformation with cutting edge science. These two Passive Houses in Belgium are one such example of grandeur without the dimensions, proving that sustainable tiny homes are great in significance, if not in size. 

Accoya is used here for the windows and façade, offering enhanced insulation to fully satisfy the energy conservation requirements of the specification. Furthermore, recent carbon footprint research has shown that our windows are carbon negative over their full life cycle, contributing considerably to the fulfilment of Passive House standards and ensuring that these houses are significantly more environmentally friendly than those have uPVC, aluminium, or unsustainably sourced hardwood windows. 

Much like the Cabin by the Sea, this private residence is a striking example of how the outstanding durability and stability of Accoya can support exciting architecture. The large windows and doors here are raking in places and often meet at obtuse angles, build requirements made possible by the unique qualities of Accoya wood. Tested and trusted not to visibly swell, shrink, or distort, these eye-catching shapes will continue to be both remarkable and functional for lifetimes to come. 

This ominous backdrop is a stark reminder of the drastic weather conditions Accoya can withstand. It performs so highly in these circumstances, in fact, that both the owner and architect of this property chose to use Accoya not only for the windows and terrace, as originally planned, but additionally for all applications throughout the home, including the façade, interior doors, indoor and outdoor furniture, terrace, garage door and railings. The result is a wonder in Accoya, a construction that persists through whatever Romania’s extreme climate can throw at it, meshing unparalleled structural integrity with sustainable natural beauty. 

This lake house in Okoboji, Iowa was designed to preserve the existing mature trees in its grounds whilst illuminating expansive views of the lake from the road. The natural look of Accoya allowed for these views to be brought to life, as if they were painted on the side of the house itself, whilst blending effortlessly into the surrounding nature. The NIGIRI Shou Sugi Ban charred Accoya used here is designed and manufactured by reSAWN TIMBER co. and can be used for both interior and exterior wall cladding and, as each and every Accoya cladding panel is made from FSC® certified timber that’s fully sustainable, this house not only blends into the natural aesthetic of the area but also into the ethos of eco-living.  

With the help of sustainable construction and the use of non-toxic materials, many future benefits are being realised. And here are just 5 of the great reasons why building sustainable stadiums promotes a healthier environment¹:

1. Water preservation: because a lot of water is needed in stadiums to water and prepare the real grass pitches, clean the venue or for sanitary reasons, water consumption in stadiums are very high. When considering how to reduce water consumption, green initiatives such as rainwater harvesting and recycling can be considered.
2. Energy preservation: in order to reduce the use of energy, more and more stadiums are being made to conserve energy consumption, and even being equipped with solar and wind power to provide them with an alternative energy source.
3. Low pollution: nowadays, more and more stadiums are built with healthier, more sustainably-sourced and recycled materials, such as wood, plastic and paper. With the help of using greener building materials that help fight global resource depletion, the amount of waste and pollution in the environment is reduced and the destructive impacts of construction are minimised.
4. Financial benefits: by choosing greener and longer-lasting materials for stadiums, environmentally-friendly projects will be
   cheaper in the long run when the maintenance and operation of the buildings are taken into account. Moreover, the value of the project can actually increase over time, while the costs of water, energy, maintenance and insurance premiums can decrease.
5. Reduced health risks to the community: using non-toxic materials can not only reduce health problems within the community, but also safety risks while stadia are constructed and in use for years after!

So now you have been introduced to world’s leading sustainable sporting stadiums, the real question is: How can you contribute to making a sustainable stadium?

As we know, many of the commonly used building materials are made of non-renewable resources, such as PVC or aluminium, which are finite, depleting resources, and often come with heavy energy and emissions costs. Every day, more and more pollution is released and CO2 is added to the surface air. However, our world can also provide us with raw materials that offer a long-term solution to both of these impacts: this material is wood, from well-managed and sustainable forests.

By specifying Accoya wood, you are already one step closer to helping build a more sustainable stadium by selecting it as your material for decking, cladding, windows and doors – frames or any other application. Accoya wood is sourced from fast growing trees and sustainably certified forests and offers many benefits to application-oriented industries around the world! Its high performance, unrivalled durability and sustainable credentials make it the perfect solution; a truly unique combination of qualities.

Thanks to our unique acetylation process, Accoya wood is highly resistant to decay – meaning it lasts and stores carbon for decades, making it a perfect alternative not only to carbon-intensive and resource-depleting materials, but also to slower-growing and unsustainably sourced hardwoods.

Just think about it. Who wouldn’t want beautiful installations from a material that has a longer lifespan while simultaneously increasing global carbon storage and providing us with a climate-proof alternative to concrete, metal and plastic, all for the sake of a more sustainable environment?

And don’t forget; you are opting for a premium product with exceptional stability that can easily last twice as long and require less upkeep than other alternatives – so in the long run the running costs can be much cheaper too.

Accoya wood may not be competing in the Olympics, but it has it’s very own Gold: Cradle to Cradle Certified™ Gold to be precise, marking it as the top performer in the building materials industry.

To give you some inspiration and ideas, let’s look at a couple of the few sustainable projects where Accoya has contributed to a more sustainable world by helping to build a greener sports stadium!

The outdoor velodrome, designed by Sander Douma Architects, was specified with Accoya wood for the 200m cycling track in Assen, the Netherlands, making it the perfect place for cyclists to train for their future cycling races while enjoying some fresh air.

The outdoor velodrome not only gives cyclists a feeling of freedom, but also creates benefits for the cyclists by giving them less resistance and more speed when cycling on the track. This is thanks to our unique modification process, which makes Accoya the perfect material for both internal and external applications of the sports stadium.

What happens at the end of its product life? Can the wood also have circular economy benefits?

As well as lasting for decades (and with a warranty for 50 years for above ground use), Accoya doesn’t contain any plastics or new elements that aren’t found naturally in wood: it’s biodegradable and can be handled in the same manner as raw wood at the end of life through recycling, composting or as a bio-based fuel source (as stated in the company’s KOMO product certificate and further evidenced by SHR – Wood Research Foundation Netherlands).  It can even be up-cycled into Tricoya wood chips, which are used to make high performance wood panels that can last decades more!

What about the transition to net zero economy?

At Accsys and through our flagship Accoya wood product, we believe that our actions and those actions of our customers can help contribute to one of the biggest challenges of our time – combatting climate change and the transition to a net zero economy.

Wood sequesters carbon, meaning that it captures carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and locks it in for its useful life, and the more durable and long lasting wood, alongside its use at end of life, can have a positive influence on the environment. Last year, our products locked in and safely stored around 50,000 tons of carbon dioxide. This means that everyone involved in the process to use Accoya, from making and distributing it to the owner living with it, has helped take the equivalent of roughly 120 million miles of car driving emissions out of the atmosphere and store it safely in a useful, beautiful product.

1. Less Stress

Perhaps one of the areas with the most comprehensive research is around stress. In short, natural environments and wood in par­ticular help reduce stress and improve wellbeing. Over the past ten years, several studies have come to the same conclusion.

One study⁸ showed that adding plants or even posters of plants into hospital waiting rooms had the potential to reduce patients’ feelings of stress. Another study⁹ put 119 students into four different rooms:

• a room with wood and plants
• a room with wood and no plants
• a room with no wood but with plants
• a room with no wood and no plants

The plants had no influence on the result, but the wood did. Students had lower stress levels in the wooden rooms.

Similarly, the newly refurbished National Oncology Institute waiting room in Bratislava, Slovakia was the location for a 2019 study.¹⁰ Visitors were measured for respiration, heart rate, cortisol level and blood pressure before, during and after their stay in the wooden room.

The participants described their emotions as predominantly satisfied or very satisfied and their cortisol levels decreased by 7.5%, implying a stress-reducing effect.

4. Creativity boost

In the past ten years, different research groups have come up with the same conclusion: wood grain as a texture positively influences creativity. The most recent evidence comes from a 2019 Slovakian study¹ where people were tested in different simulated living room environments.

The surroundings that had the most positive effect on creativity were the ones using both warm and cold colours as well as natural materials such as wood and textiles. These surroundings also had the most positive effect on problem-solving capability, understanding and thinking ability.

On the other hand, the environment with strong colours, artificial wood imitations and synthetic textiles, triggered stress in the participants. The same study also tested people by putting them in front of three different walls and allowing them to touch the wall. Brain activity increased when looking at the wooden wall compared to looking at walls made from chipboard or white laminate.

Back in 2010, a different study² examined creative performance in different environments and this also showed how exposed wood or stone surfaces have a higher potential for creativity. This was compared to artificially produced surfaces such as drywall, plastic laminate, glass, carpet or synthetic fibres.

Since that very first batch in 2007, Accsys has expanded our offering in both availability and scope to give even greater choice and versatility to the construction industry. We’ve constantly refined and developed our Accoya production processes and buying options, and developed Tricoya®, many of the Accoya’s long list of benefits to the world in panel form, unlocking vast creative and functional potential for a more sustainable built environment. We’ll be opening the world’s first Tricoya plant this year, an exciting prospect and quite amazing in the context of Accoya’s 14^th ‘birthday’!

As we’re celebrating Accoya today though, we shouldn’t forget to also mention that the new www.accoya.com launched recently, with updated branding and a whole new way to see and showcase the product and its uses in stunning detail – as well as simplifying the path to purchase.

So, maybe the question isn’t ‘why is Accoya still a favorite after 14 years’, but ‘why would you want to choose anything else?’