Pallets to Save the World

The transport industry would be lost without them and some can even be found in living rooms and bedrooms these days: euro pallets and these pallets are even about to save the world. “Save the World” is therefore the stated aim of EPAL Deutschland, the German national committee of the European Pallet Association e.V. (EPAL). Since 2013 this association has constantly registered how much carbon dioxide is saved by the production of EPAL euro pallets in Germany. This environmental benefit is clearly displayed on the newly introduced CO2 Savings Clock, which has digitally displayed the concrete savings achieved since 1 August 2013. The results displayed are calculated on the basis of pallets produced and the CO2 absorption of the wood used. The CO2 benefit of the pallet is partly due to the use of wood as raw material, since wood itself stores CO2 from the atmosphere. In addition, any waste wood that occurs during the manufacturing of pallets is used for energy production when drying the pallets. In total, this means that 27.51 kg are saved per pallet – roughly the volume of a hot air balloon.

Serving as a blueprint for this project was the National Debt Clock of the German Tax Payers’ Association. While the latter, however, only shows a negative trend, a glance at the carbon dioxide savings associated with pallets bring a smile to our faces. By its own accounts, the “EPAL Deutschland” “wants to raise further awareness about the ecological importance of wood as a sustainable material in this way”.

So far the clock shows over two billion in savings – and this only for the production all across Germany. The global savings are stated as more than twice this amount by EPAL Deutschland. The values for CO2 capture were established using the Pallet Carbon Calculator by the ECCM/Camco Group, Skogs Industrierna and timcon.