Ecobuild received quite a plaudit from Kebony marketing director Jan Terje Nielsen. It was, he said, “better than Bau”, the leading German construction exhibition.
“It not only has the environmental emphasis, it seems more progressive, more inventive,” he said. “It’s what architects and builders are looking for.”
Its forward-looking emphasis, he added, made it the ideal showcase for Kebony, softwood and temperate hardwood treated with a furfuryl alcohol polymer to give it the “attributes of tropical hardwood” for interior and exterior use.
To date Kebony has been produced in beech, maple, and southern yellow pine. New for this year’s Ecobuild was a radiata pine variant. “It’s been a while in development, but is already getting a lot of interest,” said Mr Nielsen. “Its smooth, even grain probably makes it more like tropical timber than any species we’ve used so far.”
Producing Kebony in a wider range of species, he added, also helped lay the basis longer term for licensees to use the ‘Kebonization’ process themselves on their locally available timber. “This is for the medium to longer term; we’re first proving the market potential with timber from our Norwegian plant, but it is our aim,” he said.
Boosted by demand in Norway and Germany, Kebony reported 45% growth in 2011.
Mr Nielsen said the UK is a developing market too. “We’ve supplied some real flagship products, including recently Kebony for decking, stairs and fencing at the Cambridge Microsoft park, and Kebony will be used in three pavilions developed by engineers Ramboll at the O2,” he said. “And our sole main distributor Brooks Bros reports its sub-distributors ordering and reordering.”
He also expected modified wood to be boosted by the
anti-illegal timber EU Timber Regulation next year, which would prompt “more people to look for tropical timber alternatives”.
