If you want to protect the environment, you should choose a wood-based click floor that can be reused, is locally produced and where the raw wood comes from FSC-certified forests. If the surface layer is made of hardwood, it should be thin and reinforced so that large amounts of flooring can be manufactured from one log and so that the floor lasts a long time. This has been our goal in developing the new generation of wooden floors, which we call hardened wooden floors and ceramic wood composites, which are tougher, cheaper and above all more environmentally friendly than the equivalent traditional wood, plastic and ceramic floors.
Sustainability and Environment
We were founded on sustainable innovation – the first step of which eliminated a hundred million glue bottles annually with the invention of click flooring.
Since then, sustainability has been an integral part of our efforts to improve the quality and cost efficiency of floors.
Our environmental labels
Svanen
Svanen is a Nordic ecolabel granted to products with a high proportion of renewable and recycled materials. Floors with this label need to meet strict requirements with regard to hazardous substances, be able to guarantee low emissions, be manufactured in an energy-efficient way, and demonstrate great wear resistance.
FSC
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is a certification for sustainable forestry, promoting environmentally sound, socially beneficial, and economically viable management of the world’s forests. An FSC label is a trusted mark that ensures responsibly harvested trees, fair wages and a good working environment for workers.
Sundahus
SundaHus work with sustainable development, creating conditions that help customers reduce their environmental impact. Experienced chemists assess the different properties of a product using SundaHus’s evaluation criteria, primarily based on the European Parliament and the Council's CLP Regulation (EU) No. 1272/2008 and the Swedish Chemicals Agency database, PRIO.
Greengard Gold
A UL GREENGUARD Certification demonstrates product sustainability and commitment to increased health by certifying that the products have low chemical emissions. The Gold Standard includes health-based criteria for additional chemicals to ensure that products are acceptable in environments such as schools and healthcare facilities.
Frequently asked questions about environment and sustainability
What environmental labels do your floors have?
Our floors have various environmental labels, including FSC, the Nordic Ecolabel and SundaHus evaluations. We are constantly making strides in our environmental efforts and more ecolabels will be added. Under the respective products on our website you can see which ecolabels your dream floor has.
Isn't it better to leave trees in their natural environment?
Leaving trees in the natural environment without care is not good for global warming. A forest that is not cultivated is environmentally neutral, since trees that decompose emit as much carbon dioxide as they have absorbed during their growth. A well-managed forest, on the other hand, grows faster and binds more carbon dioxide, which is stored in the timber for a long time if it is used as a construction material. The parts that do not become building materials, such as bark, can be used as heat sources and replace other energy sources with negative environmental impact.
Environmentally friendly forestry is based on less logging than growth and that certain areas that are important for biodiversity are left untouched. Since our factories are located in the vicinity of the forests that supply our wood, we can ensure that felling takes place in an environmentally friendly and responsible way.
How is diversity affected in the forests from which the timber comes?
The raw wood used in all Bjelin surfaces and core materials in our parquet floors is FSC-certified. FSC ensures that endangered species are actively protected in the forests that are certified and controlled by them. A forest managed in a responsible way also benefits biodiversity. FSC also strengthens the rights of both forest workers and the local population.
Why aren't all wooden floors environmentally positive
Up to this point, environmental aspects have not been particularly important when selecting flooring. Therefore, environmentally negative flooring that could be replaced with wood-based flooring in many applications is used. Furthermore, wooden floors have not been sufficiently durable and the price for long planks in particular has been high. The manufacturing capacity for wood-based flooring has also been limited to around 10% of the global flooring market, partly due to the shortage of oak.
All of this will change significantly in the future, as Woodura technology is now able to manufacture 10 times more hardened wooden floors from an oak log than traditional parquet. Hardened wooden floors are also stronger and cheaper than similar parquet floors. This is why Bjelin is building the world’s largest wood flooring factory, which will significantly increase capacity in the future and make it possible to replace other floors to a greater extent with more environmentally friendly wooden floors.
How do I know that a hardened wood or ceramic wood composite floor will last?
The technology for hardening wood, making it stronger and making surfaces of ceramic wood composite, was invented by our sister company Välinge Innovation back in 2008-2009 as a recycling project.
When we invent a new floor, we install it immediately in demanding environments. We therefore have test floors that have been in use for more than 10 years and the test results are excellent. The technology has been optimised since then. Together with Välinge, we have the world’s largest development centre for wooden floors, containing advanced laboratories with enormous climate chambers and instruments to test floors for impact resistance, durability, stain resistance and noise levels. Where we can simulate decades of wear – all to be able to produce the toughest and best flooring on the market.
How do I recycle or reuse my floor?
All floors from Bjelin are equipped with the strongest click joint on the market. We know this because it was our owners who invented the click floor in the 1990s.
We also know that one of our floors can easily be lifted and placed in another room – or even sold. It does not need to end up in the landfill. Our floors can also be ground down and reused as core materials for the production of new floors.
The Earth’s lungs
An important aspect is the impact of a product on global warming and the product’s carbon dioxide emissions (CO2).
An EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) describes the environmental performance of a specific product from a life cycle perspective and provides in-depth information about the greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide, that are formed in the production of a floor and when it is disposed of or recycled.
Wood as a base material in floors, unlike other materials, is extremely beneficial for reducing global warming since 2 lbs of dry wood absorbs and stores about 3,6 lbs of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This is done by means of photosynthesis. As a tree grows, about 1 lbs of carbon (C) is stored in the wood and 2,6 lbs is returned to the atmosphere as oxygen (O2).
This can be compared to the 6,6 lbs of carbon dioxide that is generated when 1 gallon of gas is consumed. 100 sqm of wood flooring therefore stores about as much carbon dioxide as a modern car generates over almost 580 km of driving.
Unlike other materials, wood is thus carbon negative and environmentally positive.
Proximity to the forest
We try to minimise the carbon dioxide generated by transport and our manufacturing. An important principle is that we have chosen to place our factories in Croatia close to the forest so that transport of wood logs, which largely consist of water, is as short as possible. A log never needs to be transported further than 10-100 km to our facilities, compared with other manufacturers whose logs are often transported significantly longer.
Most of the energy we use to dry the timber in production is bioenergy, which we get when we burn the bark from the logs. The majority of the electricity we buy in Sweden and Croatia is generated without generating carbon dioxide.
On average, our floors are CO2 negative and environmentally positive when they leave our factories. The positive environmental impact of our floors will increase further once all our investments in energy recovery and solar panels have been put into operation.
The environmental impact of the forest
Forests that are managed responsibly are environmentally friendly. Carbon dioxide is stored for hundreds of years in the timber that we take out of the forest and make into building materials, such as flooring.
Unfortunately, not all forestry is environmentally positive. Logging can be detrimental to the forest if the rate of deforestation and degradation is greater than the re-growth. To avoid this, we use FSC-certified timber. FSC stands for Forest Stewardship Council and is an independent, international member organisation that works to promote environmentally sound forestry practices through its own certification system.
Optimal use of wood
Using wood as a flooring material is the best option; it is even better if as much of the log as possible is used in manufacturing to make thin reinforced layers that are sufficient for large amounts of flooring.
Forest is not an infinite resource and the amount of precious wood, e.g. high-quality oak, is unfortunately limited. The most environmentally friendly wooden floors must therefore contain as thin a surface as possible – provided that the surface layers can be made sufficiently strong. This is made possible by the Woodura technology, which is used in the production of our hardened wood floors.
The traditional technique of producing surface layers for wooden floors is done by sawing about 4.5 mm thick layers which are then sanded to a top lamella. The technology is currently used to produce parquet floors, and manufacturing produces a lot of waste, such as sawdust.
In order to reduce waste and maximise the use of the raw wood, we use knife cutting instead of sawing when manufacturing our hardened wood floors. The surface layers end up being approx. 0.6 mm thick, which means that we can manufacture ten times more flooring from a single log than traditional parquet flooring.
Using our Nadura technology, which is used to make a ceramic wood composite, we can use wood waste from a variety of wood types mixed with binders and ceramic particles. Large amounts of wood-based flooring can be manufactured from wood materials that are normally used as biofuel. Thus, we do not need to manufacture pulp and paper used in the traditional manufacturing of laminate floor coverings.
Reuse and recycling
To protect the environment, floors must be hard-wearing so that they have a long lifespan. In addition, they should have a good locking system so that the floor can be lifted without being damaged, reinstalled in another room or sold. By reusing your wooden floor, you ensure that the carbon dioxide once absorbed by the tree stays in the floor for a long time.
If a floor board is damaged and cannot be re-installed, it can be recycled by grinding it down into raw material for new board materials, leaving the carbon in the wood. If the floor is burned or decayed, the same amount of carbon dioxide is produced as the trees have absorbed. However, combustion produces energy that can replace other fossil energy sources such as coal and oil.
This means that wood-based products are beneficial from a recycling perspective.