Circular materials and flows

Circular solutions and conserving nature’s resources benefit both the environment and the climate. That is why we continually review how we can optimise the use of materials and other resources so that we benefit fully from them.

Long-lasting kitchens

We want our kitchens to be long-lasting. Accordingly, we only manufacture kitchens of high quality and with long guarantee periods. At the same time, our experience is that tastes change and for this reason, we want to enable our customers to upgrade and renew their kitchens without needing to replace their entire kitchen. In addition, we endeavour to ensure that the products we manufacture in our plants can be re-used and recycled into new products and materials.

Wood from sustainable forestry

Wood is the main component of our products. Wood is renewable, recyclable and durable. Being a sustainable choice requires that it comes from responsible forestry. All our wood comes from sustainable sources, additionally 97% origins from certified source. Now we want to increase this share even further, through our new sustainability strategy.

Recycled material

Most of our incoming wood consists of board material, with an average of approximately 30% recycled wood in the form of by-products and recycled material. This way, waste wood from sawmills and forestry as well as from worn-out furniture and wood products is upgraded into new material. We constantly try to find new ways of increasing the proportion of recycled material in our wood products, but also to increase the amount of recycled materials in other input products, such as metal and plastic. We also work to reduce the waste from our own production and increase circular flows. During the year 63% of our waste wood and 73% of other waste went to new products.

Reduced packaging

As part of our central sourcing project, we are working on reducing the impact from packaging materials, primarily fossil fuel-based plastic materials. At our production plants in Nastola, in Finland, and Tidaholm, in Sweden, for example, we have switched to thinner plastic shrink wrap and stretch film, which reduces the total consumption of plastic in these plants by up to 40%.

Paint and solvents

Solvents are mainly used in surface treatment and for cleaning paint finishes. An aspect of the work to reduce the use of solvents is to increase the proportion of water-based and UV-cured paints and to minimise the number of changes of production equipment, which both reduces the number of cleaning steps and increases productivity. During the year, we invested in new surface treatment equipment for darker colours, within the framework of the Nordic Swan’s criteria. This new equipment now enables us to meet our customers’ higher demand for darker colours, while the kitchens also meet the strict environmental and quality requirements.

All production facilities work systematically to reduce its environmental impact. In total, 13 out of 14 facilities are certified under ISO 14001 standard for environmental management, the remaining one is in process.