Wood: a renewable
resource

Sustainability

Austria is very rich in woodland: Almost half of it is covered with forest. Therefore, wood is Austria’s most important natural resource. The Austrian forests are constantly renewing themselves: One cubic metre of wood grows back every second—far more than is being used.

As a PEFC-certified company, we at EGGER HOLZ exclusively buy wood from sustainably managed forests—so that our grandchildren can still enjoy pristine nature.

Green electricity from biomass

For over 15 years, we have been generating green electricity from sawmill by-products in our biomass heating plant. When the biomass is burned, only as much CO2 is released as the trees previously required for growth. Thus, we do not pollute the environment with additional CO2 emissions. Through the simultaneous generation of heat and electricity, we further increase our ecological efficiency.

The emission values of our combined heat and power plant are well below the specified limit values of the Immissionsschutzgesetz-Luft (Air Pollution Control Act, IG-L).

Protecting the environment through sustainable solar energy

We see ourselves as an advocate for climate protection, and, by reducing our personal CO2 emissions, we are helping to achieve our climate protection goals and to limit global warming. In 2018, we therefore installed a photovoltaic system over an area of 4,300 square metres on our roofs. In this way, we gain approximately 800 kW from sustainable solar energy.

In contrast to conventional power plants, neither our biomass heating plant nor the photovoltaic system emits climate-impacting CO2, which means we are 100% climate-neutral.

We recycle 100% of our wood

A particular concern of ours is the complete use of the valuable resource of wood. From bark and other by-products, we generate green electricity in our biomass heating plant. We use the heat energy we generate to dry our sawn timber, and the rest is fed into the public power grid of Stromnetz Steiermark GmbH.

We sell mill by-products such as sawdust and wood chips to the paper and cellulose industry as well as to agricultural enterprises.

In this way, we ensure that every tree is fully processed and that we work as sustainably as possible.