Brochure on sustainability - Klasmann Deilmann

Wood: a priority area
One focus of our activities is on a different raw material altogether: wood.
Here, opportunities for production and promising channels of utilisation
are being looked into and tried out. This is also interesting from the
standpoint of combating climate change: the use of wood, a renewable
resource, enables short-term carbon cycles to be closed. Managed
woodland removes up to 40 t of CO2 per ha from the atmosphere per
year. Wood serves as a carbon-neutral fuel, as a natural building material
and as a source of raw materials for further uses – as a peat substitute
within our own substrate production, for example.
In 2010, Klasmann-Deilmann began systematically developing and
evaluating the potential of its own land for producing wood and other
biomass. Whether, and in what form, suitable production methods for
renewable resources are emerging is currently being clarified. Another
focus of these efforts involves looking into suitable opportunities for
utilising this wood as well as within the Group and in external markets,
as well as evaluating future scope for development. Another interesting
option is the use of waste material from landscape management on
our own land as a source of energy for our own facilities. Advisory
opinions are currently being prepared on this.
The short-rotation plantations project
One project involves the establishment of trial sites for the cultivation
of fast-growing woody crops on arable land formerly used for peat
production. As at the end of 2011, a total of around 55 ha in Germany
and Lithuania had been planted up with willows and poplars. Their good
growth performance, producing up to 12 t of dry wood mass per ha
per year, enables short-rotation forestry (SRF) plantations to make a
contribution to carbon capture. The intention in setting up these trial
plantations is to help create a basis for decision-making in the form of a
business plan.
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