High-quality competition wood – Fair for sport and the environment
Providing sustainable and high-quality wood is one of our top priorities year after year, and we at STIHL TIMBERSPORTS® are highly committed to this task.
High-quality competition wood – fair for the sport and for the environment
At STIHL TIMBERSPORTS® it is important that our first-class athletes can work with first-class wood. In order to ensure the best possible conditions for our TIMBERSPORTS® competitions, all trees are examined and selected for their quality before processing. As part of the quality control for the competition timber, our wood managers Bart and Daan Jansen as well as our Global Sports Director Spike Milton have to keep a wide range of factors in mind to ensure fair and equal conditions at TIMBERSPORTS® competitions. Before further processing, all wooden blocks are checked for their condition. In this way, blocks of similar hardness are selected for the same competition. Also checked are whether there are any branches in the wood. These can be particularly harmful to athletes’ tools and cost important seconds. The wood is then further processed into competitive blocks, peeled and turned to the right diameter and only then delivered to our international and national competitions.
SUSTAINABLE WOOD MANAGEMENT
We are proud to work with FSC-certified plantations in Belgium and the Netherlands as well as responsible forestry to minimise our impact on the environment. The main wood for the international competitions and the national competitions in Europe is sustainably grown, harvested and, after the competitions, almost completely recycled and reused in renewable energies, the basis for biomass or even in the furniture industry. Particular emphasis is placed on the care and maintenance of the plantations. This means that when harvesting in the selected areas, care is taken to plant the harvested areas quickly with new trees or to keep the soil usable as arable land in agriculture. This eliminates the need to use heavy equipment during harvesting, for example.
OUR WOOD MANAGEMENT IN 2023
Providing sustainable and high-quality wood is one of our top priorities year after year, and we at STIHL TIMBERSPORTS® are committed to this task. Our Global Sports Director Spike Milton, wood manager Bart Jansen and Junior wood manager Daan Jansen together have more than 45 years of experience in sustainable wood management. The carefully selected wood is then adapted to the required competition dimensions of the individual disciplines and provides the best possible conditions for outstanding extreme sports for logger sports athletes all over the world. In addition, our wood management has set the standard that newly planted trees are well tended and properly managed to ensure efficiency and sustainability for the next generation of competition wood.
In 2023, STIHL TIMBERSPORTS® used and processed around 320 metric tons of wood for international competitions and national competitions and training camps throughout Europe.
This included:
- 80% poplar from FSC-certified plantations in the Netherlands and Belgium
- 14% black poplar from FSC-certified forestry and plantations in the Netherlands and Belgium
- 6% white pine from FSC-certified forestry in Switzerland
100% of our wood is recycled and for the most part processed for energy. One third is recycled after the production of the competition wood, and two thirds after the competitions and training camps.
