A revolutionary bio-based furniture board, joint development by Koskisen and Stora Enso

Koskisen uses Stora Enso’s bio-based binder, NeoLigno® by Stora Enso, to replace fossil-based resins used in furniture boards. Both the furniture board raw material and the binder are made of wood and sourced from the production process flows of both companies. This results in all raw materials of the Zero Furniture Board being bio-based.

“Our experts have been working together with Stora Enso to come up with this brand-new bio-based product offering. Koskisen constantly looks for opportunities to optimize its CO2 balance. One of the biggest sources for CO2 emissions in our production are the binders that we use in the panels, as they are traditionally fossil-based. The co-operation with Stora Enso has offered us a unique opportunity to address this issue: the lignin-based NeoLigno® makes the Zero Particle Board bio-based. It is an excellent opportunity to bring something new into the market. Being bio-based, Zero Particle Board is an excellent example of a circular economy product. At Koskisen, the main raw material of the panel, wood chips, come from our own production. Similarly, Stora Enso gets lignin from their Sunila pulp mill in Finland, extracted in connection to pulp production. Combining these two ingredients, we can bring something new and valuable to our customers. It is hard to imagine a stronger message to our customers and their customers, than offering something that has a lower environmental impact and is bio-based,” says Koskisen’s CEO Jukka Pahta.
“We have now been working with Stora Enso for two years, and we are finalizing and optimizing the production of Zero Particle Board in Järvelä, Finland. Our target is to launch the commercial product and deliveries to our customers in autumn 2022. Once we have launched the furniture board to our customers, our intention is to extend the use of NeoLigno® also to plywood. I am very much looking forward to extending the range of our bio-based products,” he concludes.
“Consumers are very eco-conscious and are aware of their health and indoor air quality. NeoLigno® is a unique ingredient for indoor furniture, that is equally safe and reliable as it is sustainable. With Zero Furniture Board, we can fulfill our customers’ requirements for indoor air quality, as well as for low-carbon products. The glue in wooden panels has been non-renewable for decades. It has been very cost efficient and hard to replace with bio-based materials. We have studied different bio-based options for years at Koskisen, and now we have been able to take big steps forward with NeoLigno® by Stora Enso. It is the most promising binder in bio-based gluing, and the first bio-based binder that can be integrated into our product,” says Eemi Valjakka, Product Manager at Koskisen.

About Stora Enso

Part of the global bioeconomy, Stora Enso is a leading provider of renewable products in packaging, biomaterials, wooden construction and paper, and one of the largest private forest owners in the world. We believe that everything that is made from fossil-based materials today can be made from a tree tomorrow. Stora Enso has approximately 22,000 employees and our sales in 2021 were EUR 10.2 billion. Stora Enso shares are listed on Nasdaq Helsinki Oy (STEAV, STERV) and Nasdaq Stockholm AB (STE A, STE R). In addition, the shares are traded in the USA as ADRs (SEOAY).