2016

The first PEFC-certified apartment building has been built in Scandinavia

The first wooden apartment building with a PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification) certificate can be seen in the Seinäjoki Housing Fair taking place in July of this year. As explained by the colleagues from the Finnish Forest Association, this means that the materials used for the construction of the building have been legally produced and come from sustainably managed forests.

Certification of the PEFC supply chain ensures that the timber used in construction projects can be declared as legal and obtained from sustainable sources. Such certification is suitable for large apartment buildings, public buildings, or, for example, bridges and ships, since such projects require that the origin of timber is presented, even if not all the suppliers and subcontractors ensure its monitoring themselves.

It should be noted that all of the forests managed by JSC "Latvia's State Forests" (LVM)  are certified according to the PEFC forest management standard.

There are only a few buildings in the world that have acquired the PEFC certificate. The lighthouse presented in Zaragoza EXPO (Spain) in 2008 was the world's first construction design certified in this way; the first housing project with this certificate was built in London in 2014.

"PEFC certification requirements are very strict; therefore some of the suppliers had to be replaced during the construction process. However, a number of major construction projects make gains from the fact that many European manufacturers and finished wooden elements have already been awarded the PEFC certificate," says Timo Mantila, Managing Director of Finnish company Lakea Oy, the constructor of the building.

"Finland needs to increase its use of timber in construction, because it increases the responsibility during the construction phase," says Mantila. "I have been told that 1 000 m3 of timber that has been used for the construction of the apartment building in Mäihä, grows in Finland in less than a minute. It demonstrates perfectly the efficiency of wood as a renewable resource."

The apartment building in the Seinajoki fair is built from PEFC certified CLT (multilayer solid wood panel) elements, manufactured by Stora Enso. The modules delivered to the construction sites have been refined to the smallest detail. Stora Enso is developing a new product called LVL (laminated veneer log), which is produced from Finnish wood in the new plant in Varkaus.

Mäihä is the only high-rise apartment building in the Seinajoki Housing Fair, which will be open for a month and is unique in the world. Every year, a full-fledged residential quarter is built for this fair. Families open their homes for some 100 000 visitors, and they move in only after the end of the exhibition.