EGGER is leading the way on environmental-friendly practices at its Hexham site.

The company is the first wood-based panel board manufacturer in the UK to be awarded an upgraded standard for its environmental management system.

The new ISO 140001:2015 international accreditation is only awarded to companies that satisfy a rigorous external auditing programme and demonstrate an ongoing commitment to the environment.

Environmental, health and safety manager at Egger, Paul Turner, explained: “Egger is extremely focused on reducing its environmental impact and achieving the new standard underlines this.

“The ISO 14001:2015 Environmental Management System will operate alongside our existing ISO 50001 Energy Management accreditation and acts as another incentive for us to continue with our aim to further minimise our environmental footprint and our production efficiencies on an ongoing basis.”

The new standard has been introduced to reflect the increasingly complex environments in which companies operate. It aims to help companies identify, manage, monitor and control their environmental issues in a “holistic” manner.

Paul said: “The new standard is focusing more on companies developing proactive initiatives to protect the environment, including sustainable resource use and environmental impacts associated with product use and end-of-life treatment or disposal.

“This ties in extremely well with our company mission of ‘creating more from wood’. At Egger, we operate a closed-loop cycle for chipboard production, this means very little waste is generated in our manufacturing processes.

“Our forestry operations manage and harvest woodlands, our waste wood subsidiary Timberpak provides recycled wood for us to make chipboard and our manufacturing processes lock in CO2.

“Only wood that cannot be recycled is used for our energy requirements. We work closely with our hauliers to gain a 70 per cent figure for the backhauling capabilities of vehicles, for maximum efficiency and reduced environmental impact.”

Egger is the largest chipboard manufacturer in the UK, producing 40 per cent of its requirements.

Since 2006, it has invested over £200m at its Hexham site and in the last six years alone has committed more than £100m into highly energy-efficient plant machinery and processes to reduce the plant’s consumption of fossil fuels.