Our environmental impact

Our environmental mission is to build towards a circular wood economy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Every year the UK generates around 4.5 million tonnes of waste wood. Around 90% of this is processed by the high-volume wood recycling industry into biomass for power stations, composite sheets like MDF, animal bedding, and landscape surfaces, and the majority of the rest goes to landfill. Although it’s great to see how far recycling in this country has come in recent decades, we believe we can do even better.

How we meet our environmental goals

The circular economy

In conventional economics, raw materials are extracted and transformed into products, which are then used and thrown away. This is a linear economy, going in one direction, so it’s unsustainable – eventually everything will end up as waste.

The circular economy is a vision for eliminating waste by looping all resources back into the system in a self-sustaining cycle similar to a natural ecosystem. Finding this balance may take time, but by following a few simple rules, we can move much closer to this kind of sustainable circularity.

How are we doing?

Waste collection

To meet our environmental goals, we first need to collect as much wood as possible by building relationships with wood producers and keeping our service competitive and convenient. In 2023 we collected about 21 thousand tonnes of wood.

Reuse rates

By ensuring our workshops are at full capacity and there’s a robust customer base for our wood and products, we can maximise reuse. We’ve kept our reuse rates high as our volumes have increased and in 2023 we reused nearly 8 thousand tonnes of wood, around 37% of the total collected.

UN sustainability environmental goals

The UN has identified 17 key areas where global cooperation is required on every level to ensure a fair and safe future for humanity. Our work intersects with 6 of these (4 social and 2 environmental) and we’re proud to be supporting this vital effort for the sake of those we work with, their communities, and generations to come.