Kronospan is part of the leading wood-panel manufacturing group in Europe and is proud of its commitment to reduce its impact on the environment. The Chirk site manufactures chipboard, medium density fibreboard, sawn timber, a variety of laminate and melamine faced products and organic chemicals.

Kronospan consumes over 300,000 tonnes of recycled wood fibre each year, over 75% of which is packaging waste that was previously land filled. The company is accredited to reprocess timber based packaging waste.

Senior management at Kronospan are committed to prevention of pollution, and to continual reduction in environmental impact caused by the company’s activities. The company is committed to ensuring that all relevant environmental legislation and regulations are complied with.

Planned activities that will reduce Kronospan’s impact on the environment:

Implementation of an environmental management system certified to ISO14001. This system will be integrated with the company’s mature ISO9001:2000 Quality Management System, with certification planned for January 2005. The system will provide the framework for setting and reviewing environmental objectives and targets, enabling the company to fulfil its commitments and obligations.

Kronospan is part of a sector agreement with DEFRA allowing an 80% rebate to be gained from the Climate Change Levy. As part of this agreement the company is committed to reducing unit energy usage by 7% over the next 6 years. We have successfully met our first target milestone and will continue to invest to produce further reductions in energy use.

Kronospan has installed an additional recycled fibre wash plant, now fully operational. This has allowed us to increase the recycled fibre content of chipboard from 40% to 70% based on total wood content. This has reduced the use of virgin timber, and decreased the amount of waste material being land filled.

While reducing the amount of virgin timber used by increasing recycled fibre use, Kronospan is also increasing the amount of virgin timber used that comes from sustainable sources. Currently, a minimum of 30% of virgin timber comes from FSC certified sources, but Kronospan will increase this figure to at least 50% by 2005. The company monitors performance on a weekly basis and is working with our suppliers to ensure that we achieve the more stringent requirement, maintaining our certification to FSC Chain of Custody.

Kronospan takes an active role in community liaison activities; ensuring local residents are well informed about the company’s activities. The company have a policy that encourages employees to live locally, reducing commuter traffic and helping the economic well-being of the area.

Kronospan believes that environmental performance is a key indicator of business success. Therefore the company integrates environmental criteria into all relevant business decisions.