Sustainable solutions and sustainable financial returns don’t have to be separate.
Sustainable products use environmentally friendly inputs to create long-lasting products. A long-lasting product requires less raw material than a shorter-lived product and disposal happens less frequently. If the product biodegrades or can be reused, then one can repeat indefinitely with minimal harm to the environment. Some people refer to this process as “circular economy”.
Humanity’s impact on the natural world is coming under ever greater focus, and we welcome this shift in the business world. Profit can co-exist comfortably with people and the planet. That’s why we started our business and that was our first definition of “sustainability”, which has been one of our guiding principles. (There is a reason our parent company, which was founded thirty years ago, is named Sustainable Forest Systems).
We would not produce a product that we couldn’t objectively state was environmentally friendly. So how is A Better Timber Mat good for the environment?
The most obvious answer is common to all timber mats: Our product protects the ground from heavy equipment during construction projects. This is the basic use of all matting solutions, helping to protect against compaction, soil erosion and protecting what’s under the ground such as natural gas pipelines or archaeological sites.
Our mats go further than other timber mats in two key areas: sustainability of the fiber resource, and reduced carbon footprint.
Our Eucalyptus mats are constructed from trees sourced from fast growing, constantly renewing Brazilian plantations, which provide landscape-scale forest cover to areas that previously had none. Biomass growth is about five times faster than natural US hardwood forests, providing an excellent carbon sink. Furthermore, the use of Brazilian plantations takes harvesting pressure off USA natural hardwood forests.
Eucalyptus is lighter than either oak or mixed hardwood alternatives; more mats can fit on a truck for transport. The use of fewer trucks for moving and repositioning mats lowers the carbon footprint.
We also believe that vendors can make a meaningful contribution to owners and contractors by providing more sustainable product offerings. Customers and investors are driving this sustainability push forward and we’ll need to adapt as an industry. More information at https://eucmat.is/green
Questions? Contact us.
