Tags: Certifications / Environment / EU Eco-label / UPM Future

Veneer is traditionally associated with plywood and furniture industry even though the material can be used in many creative ways. During the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, 30 hotels replace plastic key cards with renewable wooden key cards. The environmentally friendly key cards are a patent pending product manufactured and supplied by the company Sustainable Cards using UPM’s veneer.

The wooden key cards are made of light-coloured WISA veneer, a special coated birch veneer that is elastic and stiff. It is suitable for printing with conventional printing techniques. The card can be fully recovered to produce bioenergy and it is a compostable material.

“Finnish veneer made of birch is a smart material and feels nice to touch. We are pleased that our sustainable product has supported the creation of an innovation like this,” says Panu Anttila, Director for UPM’s Veneer Business.

Sustainable Cards has delivered approximately 100,000 key cards made of veneer to the Copenhagen hotels. A typical 200-room hotel uses annually 12,000 key cards. Significant amounts of plastic waste can be reduced by replacing plastic key cards with wooden ones, and ensuring they are recycled, recovered or re-used.

In addition to WISA veneer, UPM via it’s customer Lyreco, is supplying roughly nine million sheets of copy paper to the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Future from UPM’s Docelles mill in France was selected due to its superior environmental features, including sustainable sourcing of wood raw material and the EU Eco-label, the official EU mark awarded to greener products.

For more information please contact:

Mr Panu Anttila, Director, Veneer Business, UPM, tel. +358 40 525 1138

Mr Peo Akesson, CEO & Founder, Sustainable Cards, tel. + 1 720 530 3008; www.sustainablecards.com

the griffin, special COP15 edition: http://thegriffin.upm-kymmene.com/

Information on UPM’s actions to mitigate climate change: www.upm-kymmene.com > Media > Press kits > UPM is up for the climate change challenge

COP15 online at: http://en.cop15.dk/frontpage

UPM leads the integration of bio and forest industries into a new, sustainable and innovation-driven future. Our products are made of renewable raw materials and are recyclable. UPM consists of three Business Groups: Energy and pulp, Paper, and Engineered materials. The Group employs around 24,000 people and it has production facilities in 15 countries. In 2008, UPM’s sales amounted to EUR 9.5 billion. UPM’s shares are listed on the Helsinki stock exchange.

UPM – The Biofore Company – www.upm-kymmene.com