An interview with Dr. Martina Bender, Product Sustainability Manager, about transparency and sustainability in practice at EGGER.

Martina Bender has worked at EGGER since 2013 and has been in charge of product sustainability for all EGGER Group products since 2019. With a degree in forestry and a PhD in economics, she ensures that comprehensive information on the environmental performance of EGGER products is available and particularly values the collaboration with colleagues around the world.

Sustainability is omnipresent today. What does sustainability mean for EGGER?

Martina Bender: We are one of the leading manufacturers of wood-based materials and are aware of our responsibility for the environment and society: Acting with foresight and with future generations in mind has always been a lived practice for us. We meet this challenge and transparently disclose who we are, what we do and how we act. In short: We ensure sustainable products, we pay attention to environmentally friendly production, and we take our social responsibility seriously. Our corporate mission “More from wood” reflects this. Our Sustainability Report, which is externally audited, is published once a year and is available for download on our website. The website itself also contains many facts and information on environmental and sustainability topics.

Is it important to you personally to contribute to a more sustainable world?

Martina Bender: Of course. Working with wood is a solid basis for this, but there is always room for improvement. It is particularly important to me that the term “sustainability” is not used as an empty phrase, but serves us as a guiding principle for a future worth living – as I learned from the forestry industry. We want to continuously improve. This applies to all our activities, products and services. In addition, we want to further promote the recycling of MDF fibreboard.

How transparent is EGGER when it comes to such a complex topic as sustainability?

Martina Bender: EGGER stands for full product transparency and a verifiable, factual representation of environmental properties. Either crisp and clear at a glance, as with our EGGER sustainability indicators (EcoFacts), or at expert level as a life cycle assessment in our Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) and Environmental and Health Data Sheet (EHD), which shows at a glance what contribution our product makes to the most important building certification systems and eco-labels. The data offers planners, designers and architects the possibility to evaluate buildings according to sustainability criteria. With the EPD we show the CO2 footprint of the product, among other things.

Keyword CO2 footprint. How is it calculated?

Martina Bender: The raw material wood absorbs CO2 during its growth and stores it. CO2 is emitted during transport and processing. The difference between the storage and the emission results in the CO2 footprint. Our wood-based products have a very small footprint because a lot of CO2 is bound in the product. We speak of a negative CO2 footprint if less CO2 is emitted during transport and processing than is bound in the product. Our EGGER Laminate Flooring has this type of negative footprint and thus has a positive effect on our climate.

Since the laminate flooring consists of 86% wood, carbon is bound in the product. Compared to products made of purely fossil or mineral raw materials, this is an opportunity for sustainable consumption and a way to fight climate change.

What other characteristics make EGGER Laminate Flooring particularly sustainable?

Martina Bender: Our laminate flooring is produced in Wismar. We use process heat from our own biomass power plant for production. Since the laminate flooring consists of 86% wood, carbon is bound in the product. Compared to products made of purely fossil or mineral raw materials, this is an opportunity for sustainable consumption and a way to fight climate change. We also do everything we can to make our laminate flooring durable and ensure it retains its value. There are care and installation instructions as well as explanatory videos for our customers. Thanks to a straightforward installation system, even individual flooring boards can be replaced or the entire floor covering can be dismantled again. Depending on the product variant, we give up to 25 years of warranty on our laminate flooring.

We hear the term “cascade use” again and again with reference to EGGER laminate flooring. What does it mean?

Martina Bender: Cascade use figuratively describes the idea that wood is used as a raw material - not as a fuel wood! As it flows through these utilisation cascades, the wood becomes smaller and smaller. Wood that can no longer be used as solid sawn timber is still perfectly suitable for making high-quality and durable laminate flooring.

For the production of wood-based materials, we use not only industrial waste wood, but also by-products that arise during industrial wood processing steps, such as hackchips, sawdust, wood shavings, trimmings and cap timber. We use these sawmill by-products specifically to conserve resources and produce a high-quality and durable floor.

What is your favourite laminate decor?

Martina Bender: I am a big fan of light woodgrain decors, such as Light Matera Oak, EHL 184. In our house, the same decor is installed in all rooms and hallways. This radiates continuity, calm and spaciousness. And yet this light floor looks completely different in the individual rooms, as if it were picking up the colour tone of the walls. It's really amazing.