Dormer Road
  Thame
  Oxfordshire
  OX9 3UD

  UK

  TEL: 01844 219609
  FAX: 01844 219619

Environment & Sustainability

FSC Cetificate: TT-COC-2012

Using timber in construction is a very positive way of storing carbon and stimulates investment in new plantations worldwide. Under the SFI scheme, members in North America, are planting more than 1.7 Million trees every day. Eliminating the income generated from timbers, destroys the local value and may actually lead to more forest clearance for farming or other land use. Graefe Limited aim to use timber and timber based products from sustainable sources. There is a rapidly changing picture with regard to the availability, quality and costs of certain timbers. Our policy is to meet our customer’s requirements and to offer the best possible advice on species selection. We also review frame component dimensions, making proposals where wastage can be reduced.

Recycling Our Waste

Graefe have now adopted a new environmentally friendly method of handling our waste materials from both factory

and office. Timber waste from the factory is converted into chips and then compressed. All office paper waste is also added and the full containers are then taken away for processing. Plastics are also sorted and sent for recycling.

At an off-site location, this timber waste material is then mixed with farm waste. After fermentation lasting several weeks, the material is turned into compost that can be used on arable fields. This fermentation process is able to deal with the glues in chipboard.

This has removed the need for our waste to be sent to landfill sites and use by farmers as compost reduces the amount of fertiliser used.

Using timber efficiently

It is beneficial to avoid detailing frames and joinery items with finished sizes of: 25mm, 50mm, 75mm.

As finished sizes need to allow for a reduction of 6mm off the nominal section size. For example; 50mm produces 44mm finished. Stops typically need to be no thicker than 12mm. Frame linings 32mm.

Europe’s forests are growing

• The European timber industry has overseen a steady expansion of Europe’s forests over the past 60 years.
• Between 1990 and 2000 the European forest area has grown by 30%
• This growth continues, as only 65% of the annual growth is harvested. This adds some 252 million cubic metres to the carbon sink annually.
• The best way to use forests as carbon sinks is to harvest the timber and convert it into products (which continue to store the carbon) while replanting more trees than before.
• Growing trees absorb CO2 from the atmosphere at a rate of 1kg for every m3 of growth and convert it into carbohydrates through photosynthesis, releasing the oxygen we breathe.
• The resulting carbon is locked away for the tree’s life and the life of the timber and paper products coming from the tree.

From Wood for good fact sheet No. 9