Welcome to our first edition of Accoya Insights – our bi-monthly newsletter bringing you relevant company updates and key developments from around the world.

This edition includes:

• Record Accoya production in the Netherlands
• Accoya USA construction update
• Results of Accoya and Accoya Color testing
• Upcoming trade shows and seminars
• New recruit – Darrin Andrews
• New project case studies

The challenge therefore is to find a more sustainable, non-toxic and durable alternative for these timber posts and rails.

Testing of Accoya wood, undertaken by Australian Forestry Research Council, has seen posts of Accoya bedded in the estuary assessed over the course of two years between 2015 & 2017.  There was a lot of aquatic life on the Accoya posts – showing its compatibility with the local flora and fauna – but when you clean it off and cut through the posts you can see the Accoya wood itself is pristine and clear of damage or decay with no evidence of shipworms boring themselves in the wood.

In the four years since then there is still good performance from the Accoya with no breakdown or durability issues at all. This test proves the combination of durability and non-toxicity is possible and effective, which over time can allow for the use of Accoya wood to replace the other wood species that have been used traditionally, making it the ideal material for oyster farms across Australia.

The Accoya wood brand from Accsys has won gold and bronze at the Transform Europe Awards 2021.  The Transform awards recognise and celebrate the best of the best in brand strategy, development and transformation – how a company, brand or product’s visual identity, story and proposition can make an impact.

Accoya, the brand of stable, durable and sustainable solid wood won the first place Gold award for “Best visual identity from the engineering and manufacturing sector”, and Bronze for “Best rebrand of a digital property”.

Over the past year Accsys, working with independent brand agency Mr B & Friends, has redeveloped, relaunched and refined its Accoya branding and brought a class-leading website to the world: connecting business and consumer customers to both the product and each other, making the journey from awareness to decision and purchase easier and smoother than ever before.

Pictured right: Kate Gorringe – Mr B and Friends
Laura Keily – Accsys

Accoya is made using sustainable, responsibly grown and harvested FSC® certified wood and is Cradle to Cradle Certified™ Gold overall with a Platinum rating for Material Health. Its unparalleled structural stability, incredible durability and excellent sustainability credentials make it a truly unmatched product for a wide range of applications and situations.

Accoya has been used in projects around the world as a high-performance timber of choice for years, and it all started in Scotland back in 2006. The first worldwide Accoya project took place in Glenrothes in Fife, Scotland when architectural designer Gordon Aitkin installed Accoya cladding on his own new family home. For him, sustainability and durability were crucial in the harsh Scottish climate.

When we went back to speak to Gordon ten years after installation, he revealed the only maintenance that he had needed to carry out on the cladding was a light sand and recoat in a small, exposed area.

It’s due to Accoya’s exceptional dimensional stability, barely shrinking or swelling at all, that coatings will last longer even in tough environmental climates. It’s not just up in Scotland that we’ve been able to see first-hand the exceptional performance of Accoya though – there are projects all over the world, from Antarctica to Asia, beaches to mountaintops, and almost everywhere in between. With our commitment to quality, we also have testing rigs set up in Arnhem in the Netherlands that have monitored the performance of Accoya over the last decade with leading coatings company Remmers. After 14 years of exposure, the tests showed no visible coating degradation even with zero maintenance.

Sustainability consultancy 540 WORLD worked with Accsys and TEAM2100 to implement this important sustainability initiative, with a view to more widespread substitution of slow-growing hardwood with fast-growing, rapidly carbon-sequestering and very durable Accoya. The lack of toxic or plastic-based additives to Accoya is vital to its use in these environments, eliminating the risk of potential leaching into the water and environmental or ecological harm.

Each cubic metre of Accoya contains nearly one tonne of CO2e absorbed by certified sustainable forests, and keep that carbon safely stored for decades: it is warrantied for 50 years above ground, and 25 years in fresh water, with previous tests also indicating exceptional durability and integrity in marine environments. This installation in the Thames Estuary will provide further data on long-term performance, adding to the consensus of positive data from sites in the Mediterranean and North Seas.

Due to the increasing popularity of sustainable materials, particularly within the building industry, it is not surprising that many builders are impressed by the advantages of wood.

Wood is a natural building material. It’s fully renewable and has good thermal properties.

Accoya has properties of hardwood but the sustainability credentials of fast-growing softwood. Due to its lightweight, dimensional stability and durability, Accoya wood is suitable for quick installation with the guarantee of a long life. This makes it an ideal solution for new construction, renovations and extensions.

This striking construction project is a new building for the CGG Waas & Dender (Center for Mental Health Care) in the Belgian city of Sint-Niklaas.

The offices and consultation rooms are equipped with Accoya for the facade and the exterior joinery.

Accoya was chosen by HA architects for its durability and a better alternative to tropical hardwoods.

The Accoya wood is an overwhelming success. Even with the large dimensions of the windows, we have had a marginal effect. That would have been absolutely impossible with any other type of wood. In addition, it is an ecologically responsible type of wood, which is very important to us at our architectural office. Preserved Accoya has durability class 1, which means it will last more than 30 years. Most trees with this durability class have a very long growing time. Accoya wood comes from FSC certified plantations and has a short growing time of up to 30 years. This prevents deforestation, which occurs when more is cut than grows. “

Bart Demeestere – Architect (translated)

The Public Center for Social Welfare (OCMW) in Belgium opened its new service center in December 2019. The architectural firm GWM chose Accoya wood frames, doors and part of the external cladding.

In the application, the wood provides warm accents on the concrete facade. The dimensional stability of Accoya wood makes it ideal for exterior joinery. ”

Cindy de Maaskamp, Architect, Architectenbureau GWM

Continue reading here

Anyone thinking of the future must consider wood for construction.

Belgium: Beer, Chocolate and Accoya!

These makers and builders have sustainability in mind, and are creating more and more projects with the Accoya wood that’s produced in the city.

In Arnhem we turn timber from fast-growing, renewable and sustainable forests into Accoya wood; from Arnhem this durable, stable product is shipped all over the world; in Arnhem itself you can see the appeal and impact it has on the community.

The 3,000 square metre “Burgers’ Mangrove” is the largest indoor mangrove in the world.  Koninklijke Burgers’ Zoo Arnhem based the area on the mangrove forests bordering the coast of the Central American country of Belize.

Mangroves are often known as the ‘nurseries of the sea’, with their unique climate and complex habitat acting as home and shelter to countless animals and species.

In the extremely humid indoor climate, a material was needed that wouldn’t deteriorate from the moisture in the air: Accoya wood, with its unique properties and best-in-class Material Health rating, was the natural choice for the scaffolding, cabins, sheds, porch and butterfly exhibit.

A series of park benches designed as a parting gift to the municipality of Arnhem from former mayor Pauline Krikke. Designed by Arthur Rottier, the durable Accoya wood benches have a 50-year warranty to stand as a lasting memento of her contribution to the city.

Architect Suzanne Nagtegaal from BuroBois designs with an eye to the future: “Buildings last longer if they are deliberately designed. The sustainability of a building is partly determined by how it is constructed, which materials are used, how it is insulated and how the building is oriented in relation to, for example, the sun.”

This Accoya framed information board offers locals and visitors walking routes through the Arnhem nature and recreation area ‘Stadsblokken Meinerswijk’.

“It’s really great to use this wonderful innovative material for Arnhem bottom-up projects. After years in rain and wind, still like new! ” 

• Designer Willem Jakobs of Stadsgras

Designed by Hurenkamp architects from Velp, this loft house in the midst of the city uses the pale Accoya cladding sections to create an eye-catching, elegant façade.

Accsys, the producer of Accoya wood, moved to an attractive new office location in Arnhem a couple of years ago. The new building combines the office and production facilities to form one connected complex, resulting in non-residential construction of more than 19,000m². Hurenkamp Architecten & Adviseurs and Bruil construction company have made modern and unique choices in the materials and finish of the office: from the unique ‘wood cell’ façade to the frequent and widespread use of Accoya and Tricoya inside and out.

We want to inform, create awareness, and above all inspire people with what they can accomplish using Accoya® wood, and our new website is designed to do just that.

We still have all the information, data and details about Accoya’s fantastic qualities and sustainability, but now we’re really showing just what you can do with it.

There are new ways to explore our major applications of windows, doors, cladding/siding and decking, and an extensive (and filterable) projects section that highlights some of the amazing places and buildings around the world that feature Accoya® wood.

We want to provide an online experience that delivers useful, relevant and inspirational content to all our audiences, and helps you find what you want and need through either browsing or searching – and our new ‘Knowledge Hub’ can help answer any questions you may have.

HMS Warrior, Britain’s first iron-hulled armoured battleship. Launched in 1860, Warrior was the pride of Queen Victoria’s fleet. Powered by steam and sail, she was the largest, fastest and most powerful naval ship of her day and had a lasting impact on naval architecture and design.

Painstakingly restored in Hartlepool and back home in Portsmouth since 1987, Warrior is a unique survivor of the once formidable Victorian Black Battlefleet and now serves as a museum ship.

The ship has more recently undergone a major restoration using large volumes of Accoya for replacing the gunwales and other parts of the ship that had slipped into a poor state. Accoya wood was selected due to its durability, ability to withstand extreme conditions and its dimensional stability, making it an ideal material for projects such as this.

To further enhance Accoya’s aesthetic, Remmers waterborne Sealing Primer, SW-910 end grain sealer and Compact Opaque PU brushing system was applied.

The Handlebar Café is cycle-friendly, socially-sourced, straddles an old railway line and was designed by the young minds of spudYOUTH, a RIBA award winning charity.  Accsys has been supporting the project throughout its development, contributing both funding and sustainable, long-lasting Accoya® wood for its cladding and decking.

Accsys, together with its distributor James Latham (www.lathamtimber.co.uk), has provided the Accoya wood to help the students realise their dream project: a cyclist-friendly and community-centred café along the Viaduct Cycle Path at the foot of St Catherine’s Hill, south of Winchester.

After extraordinary community support from local businesses, individuals and the local authorities, over £350,000 was raised turning their concept into a reality with Handlebar Café officially opening for business yesterday.

A ‘model of sustainability’ and constructed largely from timber, the design was inspired by the train carriages that no longer run along the railway line.  Fitting in perfectly to the project’s sustainability goals is the use of Accoya® wood for the exterior elements.

Accsys’ proprietary acetylation process transforms FSC® certified, sustainable, fast growing wood into a building material that can also outperform man-made, unsustainable or heavily carbon-polluting alternatives. This means the Handlebar Café will not only look great, but will also be locking up captured atmospheric carbon in the wood of its walls and flooring for decades.

As Accoya wood is so stable and durable, the trees used to make them will actually be regrown several times over during the lifetime of products made from it – and the carbon footprint for production is very low (or even negative).

Local children, working with the spudYOUTH charity, designed and planned the venue to provide ethically-sourced food and drink, cycle hire and repair facilities, and training and jobs for young and long-term unemployed people.

It will also provide a venue for charity and community activities, with up to 140 free architecture workshops per year for up to 20 young people each. The project also aims to promote healthy and environmentally friendly living – not only through encouraging cycling, but also through ethical, local and sustainable sourcing.

As a result of increasing global population and consumption, and a linear make-take-waste economy, our planet is over exploited resulting in depletion of the world natural resources, a huge waste problem, toxic emissions and ultimately global warming.

Against this backdrop it seems unimaginable to keep mass consuming carbon intensive materials from non-renewable resources such as plastics, concrete and metals. Although there are various initiatives within the concept of the circular economy that emphasise closing the loop of the so-called technical cycle for non renewable materials, in reality this is more an exception to the rule than current practice. Take a look at the Sustainability animation for more information.

Essentially, renewable materials produced in the bio-cycle of the circular economy (including sustainable wood) have three huge ‘green’ benefits over techno-cycle materials:

• Sustainable wood is renewable (if managed well; an unlimited source of resource)
• Sustainable wood has a very low, possibly even negative carbon footprint
• If designed well (biocycle compliant additives, coatings & adhesives), sustainable wood is biodegradable, returning back into the bio-cycle becoming nutrients for new plants/trees.