Panels & Furniture Asia January/February 2018

SHOW REVIEW 55
A SUSTAINABLE APPROACH
European Director David Venables
opened his presentation with the words,
“It’s all about the trees” and focused
on the sustainability of U.S. hardwood
forests. At least 20 American hardwood
species are available in significant
commercial volumes but Vietnam does
not use them all.
Mr Venables said, “Sustainability is
also about the balance between what
we use and what nature produces which
behoves us to select from a wider range
of species and in various grades.”
He also shared how AHEC is working
with European retailers to choose
a wider variety of species and with
initiatives such as the recent “Too Good
to Waste” campaign in Italy.
Sustainable forest management
by natural regeneration with growth
exceeding harvest and mortality is the
pillar by which American hardwood is
regarded as a ‘safe’ material. “Most
species in most states show net growth
– a real measure of sustainability,”
he commented.
This is supported by new online
interactive maps which provide data for
any commercial species at a national,
state or county level. He demonstrated
red oak as a case of under-utilised
material.
Only four per cent of American
hardwood forest is FSC- or PEFCcertified.
But low intensity selection
felling – most owners may harvest only
once in a generation – makes such
certification uneconomic. Hardwood
timber operators purchase from
hundreds of different landowners each
year, usually in small quantities and
there are four million hardwood forest
owners in the USA. AHEC’s response to
lack of certification is not to defend but
to develop a broader, more effective
approach to demonstrate sustainability.
For many of AHEC’s recent projects
it has been possible to calculate the
time in seconds taken for the forest to
re-grow the equivalent amount of wood
used in any single project. For example,
it takes 25 seconds to replenish the
500 cubic metres of American white
oak in a deck in Milan, as well as the
14.5 metric tonnes of CO 2
stored.
PERFORMANCE AND DESIGN
Mr Venables also shared trends in
American hardwoods with new and
innovative applications including
Thermally Modified Timber (TMT) and
Cross Laminated Timber (CLT). The latter
is now well-known for the Endless Stair,
The Smile and Maggie’s Cancer Centre
in the U.K.—the world’s first commercial
use of tulipwood CLT.
In a demonstration of structural
performance along with aesthetic
design, Mr Venables showed the
structural use of American white oak
for the barrel vaulted grid shell roof
over Portcullis House in London. With
strength class D50, it is roughly twice
the strength of high-grade softwood.
This enables more slender members to
be used due to its superior strength-toweight
ratio.
For the future he predicted that red
oak will become more widely utilised.
The seminar concluded with a
presentation on U.S. Hardwood Lumber
Grades by Dana Spessert, chief inspector
of the National Hardwood Lumber
Association. ℗
"
Sustainability is
also about the balance
between what we use and
what nature produces
which behoves us to
select from a wider range
of species and in various
grades.
"
- David Venables,
European Director,
AHEC
David Venables,
AHEC European Director
PANELS & FURNITURE ASIA • Issue 1 • January / February 2018