FCBA and Evertree, Partnering to Make Bio-based Wood Panels to Preserve the Environment and the Air We Breathe Indoors
The FCBA technological institute, the technical hub for the forestry, wood and furnishings sectors, is working with Evertree to bring the “Respire” project to life, with support from ADEME – the French Agency for Ecological Transition.
If you follow our updates, you will have seen that our “Respire” project, created in partnership with FCBA and supported by ADEME, resulted in the creation of Green Ultimate, our bio-based alternative to fossil-based adhesive resins. This summer will see the launch of the first MDF panels with no added formaldehyde, another product created through the project. None of this would have been possible without the help of FCBA, our partner for the past two years.
We decided to introduce this organization, which has been a leading player in the wood and furnishings sectors since 1952. We interviewed engineer and project manager Sandra Tapin-Lingua, who told us all about the ways that the Evertree philosophy and the work of the FCBA complement each other.
Tell us a little about FCBA and the work you do
FCBA is the leading French industrial technical center for the forestry, wood and furnishings sectors. We cover the entirety of the wood industry: from silviculture (growing trees) and logging, to pulp, wood buildings, wood furnishings and more. Our tests and analyses are used to improve the performance, quality and recyclability of wood products. We also analyze the lifecycle for products made from wood – we study the entire lifecycle of a wood panel, from production through end-of-life, in order to determine whether it will be truly recyclable and what its environmental impact will be.
Thanks to our many laboratories outfitted with cutting-edge technology, we are able to respond to calls for tender and help produce a variety of wood-derived products (panels, pulp, etc.). And we support companies like Evertree with their projects.
At FCBA, we also consider ourselves a “matchmaker” of sorts. Thanks to our expertise and our large network of contacts in the wood and furnishings sectors, we are able to present some of the projects we are involved with to our professional commissions. We have 11 commissions, each specializing in a specific wood sector. By connecting players in the industry, we help suppliers grow their networks.
How did you get connected with Evertree?
We met Evertree when they were looking for a partner with the technical expertise to help them develop a high-performance bio-based resin and assess the performance of the panels produced with it.
What we loved about the Evertree project right off the bat was that they were not starting from scratch; they had very specific ideas about the development process and the potential uses for their bio-based solution. They reached out to us to help them make their project a reality because of our position as an industrial player in the wood sector.
How are you working with Evertree today?
The Respire project is supported by ADEME, the French Agency for Ecological Transition. Some 15 people in all are working on Respire at FCBA, particularly on indoor air quality and lifecycle analysis, two issues that are central to the aims for the project.
The goal of the project is to prove to industrial players that panels made with Evertree’s bio-based resin have all the same properties as conventional ones plus some new advantages for consumers. We want to prove to furnishings manufacturers that these new panels perform the same as traditional ones when it comes to industrial production, whether in terms of machinability or the ability to apply finishes (ideally bio-based ones!).
Our work is cross-disciplinary, and we check in regularly on the progress made with the project. We perform the tests that confirm the quality of the bio-based panels (mechanical properties, durability, recyclability, use properties, indoor air quality, etc.). We leverage our various contacts to help Evertree network with the companies and commissions in the industry (the panel commission and the floor and wall covering commission, for instance) to help accelerate the adoption of bio-based adhesives by suppliers.Our complementary expertise has helped the project accomplish great things, and we are very proud to be working with Evertree to develop this revolutionary project.
