On 19 November, Pauline Piron, Marketing Coordinator at Alipa Group, Guillaume Houba, Technical Sales Representative at No-Nail Boxes, Julien Dethier, Purchaser at Alipa Group, held a webinar entitled : “The future is wood: why choose folding boxes for your packaging?”
Aimed at industry, packaging and logistics professionals, this webinar is available in replay (in French) via the following link: https://webikeo.fr/webinar/le-futur-est-au-bois-pourquoi-choisir-des-caisses-pliantes-pour-vos-emballages-1/replay.
In this article, we get back to the main lines of the first part of this intervention which explains in particular why it is interesting to choose wood for your packaging.
Choosing wood for its properties
Choosing wood means making sure you use a noble, natural and ecological material. Indeed, wood is a material at the same time:
- renewable and natural
- recyclable
- available in abundance
- with a neutral carbon footprint
Unlike other resources such as fossil fuels, wood is a renewable material in the sense that it regenerates in less than a hundred years. It is a material that plays an essential role in maintaining our ecosystems, especially since its carbon footprint is neutral. Explanations: throughout their growth, through the process of photosynthesis, trees capture CO2 and light, absorb water and minerals. This is an indispensable mechanism for the production of energy and materials needed to make up wood, bark and leaves. At the same time, they release oxygen into the atmosphere. Conversely, when wood decomposes naturally in the forest or when it is used as a source of energy, it releases as much CO2, minerals and water as it has absorbed during its growth. Finally, to illustrate the importance of wood for our planet and the quality of the air we breathe, we can remember that 1m3 of wood can store up to one ton of CO2, which corresponds to the carbon footprint of a round trip by plane from Paris to New York.
A sustainable, transformable and renewable resource
Before releasing its CO2, wood can have a long life or even several. As the famous French chemist and philosopher Antoine Lavoisier used to say about the transformation of matter: “Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed”. This sentence applies perfectly to wood. Indeed, in a tree, nothing is lost, everything is used and transformed. According to its characteristics, its species, its size, its origin, the wood will be used in different sectors: construction, industry or energy. Among the first possible transformations, we can mention slicing and peeling. Peeling consists in peeling a log of wood to obtain long sheets. Once superimposed, these sheets become plywood. Other transformations also exist such as sawing and planing to obtain boards. These boards or panels can then undergo a second transformation to become pallets, boxes, furniture, and much more.
In its life cycle, the tree goes through several phases in which a responsible behavior of the human being in the forest can be beneficial.
Indeed, when they are between 0 and 10 years old, the young plants are fragile and therefore vulnerable to bad weather and forest animals. The human being protects them in particular by encircling them with wire netting. When they are between 10 and 35 years old, the trees continue to grow and the weakest ones are removed to help the strongest flourish. When they are between 35 and 100 years old, the trees reach their maturity. The human being then continues his selection work for the most beautiful trees, which will in turn become the parents of young plants. Beyond the age of 100 years, a new forest life cycle begins.
Thus, we work in full awareness of these cycles of nature. Attentive to the realization of our supplies in an eco-responsible way, we have mainly oriented ourselves towards the use of birch wood. Birch is a fast growing tree that can reach maturity in 15 years. It is rather light, but at the same time strong and resistant, which guarantees the quality of our folding boxes.
Choosing wood therefore means making a strong commitment to respect the environment. It is also in the DNA of our company, which for over 50 years has been choosing wood, with folding boxes designed to save space, be light, resistant to stacking, enhance brand image and have a low environmental impact.
