Environment

We act responsibly

Forests are the "green lung" of our planet. To ensure the sustainable development of the biosphere, one of society's most important tasks in the 21st century is to preserve them everywhere. The ante Group takes this responsibility very seriously.

Our production is based on softwood logs harvested in a sustainable manner by the woodlot owners and is consistently geared towards being environmentally friendly. Through our future-oriented interpretation of the 0% waste rule, we make an active contribution to urgently required climate protection. It's readily apparent: Our actions are based on passion and understanding.

A simple principle ensures its continued existence. The most important principle for ante is sourcing material from domestic forests close to the plants, which are managed according to sustainable principles. This means that the amount of wood harvested in a given year doesn't exceed the amount of new growth. This ensures that the raw material wood is always available.

Expressed in numbers, this means that a total of 60 million solid cubic metres of wood can be harvested in Germany every year without endangering the forests. In fact, only 40 to 45 million solid cubic metres are used. So the forest resource is used in a very sustainable way. The same principle was already developed at the end of the 18th century by the German forestry industry and is now considered an essential requirement for using forests in a nature-oriented manner around the world.

In addition, further principles of nature-oriented forestry have been established since the UN Conference on the Environment in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. They require that only individual trees are removed in the course of thinning work, so that the forest itself is maintained at all times and that the soil organisms aren't subjected to any sudden changes in the microclimate. In addition, individual trees which die off aren't used, in order to preserve the habitat of animals and plants which colonise deadwood. Chemical pest management no longer plays a role in modern forest management.

The ante Group produces in the middle of its raw material resource. Because the wood we use comes from the surrounding domestic forests. This keeps the energy required for transport to a minimum and makes an important contribution to avoiding emissions. This is achieved on the one hand by keeping the distance from the forest to the plant as short as possible, on the other hand by the most direct routes to our (inter)national customers - thanks to extensive processing and finishing at our plants.

Kiln drying allows us to significantly reduce the weight and volume of the wood being transported.

Studies by the World Health Organisation have shown that wood-panelled rooms have a positive effect on the wellbeing of people. This discovery is also true for ante gluelam products, which are ideally suited to the increasingly popular option of exposed framing. They can be used without chemical wood preservatives for permanent interior applications.

For exterior construction elements such as roofing or windows and doors, wood preservatives can often be avoided as well through structural measures and building techniques. Wide roof overhangs are not just visually appealing - they also provide effective protection for the facade against precipitation and thus make an important contribution to preserving value over the long term.

CO2 emissions are the main cause of the greenhouse gas effect. The greenhouse gas effect is the term used to describe the damaging effects which burning fossil fuels has on the earth's heat balance. Some of the heat radiated by the earth no longer makes it into space, because the exhaust gases and CO2 in particular form a heat shield. The use of wood products is an effective way to reduce the rise of CO2 levels.

Besides the oceans, the biomass of plants in general and trees in particular is one of the most important "CO2 sinks" on earth. Wood has a neutral CO2 cycle: During photosynthesis, leaves absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) and use it and other elements to grow wood, releasing oxygen (O2) in the process. When wood rots or burns, the exact amount of carbon (C) bound in the wood is released again in the form of CO2. By using wood as a building material, the carbon in the wood is stored for a long time and not converted back into CO2, as it would be if the wood decomposed naturally. An average of 47 tons of CO2 are bound in a single-family wood-frame house, for example.

There are about 165,000 tons of carbon stored in the sawn lumber produced by ante every year. This corresponds to 610,000 tons of CO2. Mathematically, this compensates for the annual CO2 emissions of 48,000 single-family homes.

100 % renewable energy. With 0 % waste. Wood is a wonderful and universally useable raw material. It can be used as a raw material and energy source, and is also biodegradable in a CO2-neutral way. This is why there is no waste at ante.

All of the wood waste generated in the process of manufacturing the ante products is fully utilised. Wood shavings and sawdust are pressed into pellets with a very high energy density, while bark and chips are used as fuel for two biomass-fired boilers. This eliminates the conventional practice of trucking away waste material - for example to the paper or derived wood products industry. In addition, it saves just under 11 million litres of heating oil per year. Because: Construction of our biomass-fired boilers has made us independent, since they produce more than enough electricity for our plants and drying kilns.