 The forest cluster in Europe includes forest owners (more than 9 million private forest owners), woodworking industries (sawmills and panel industries), pulp, paper & board manufacturing industries, paper & board converting industries, printing industries and furniture industries, with an annual turnover of 400 billion EUR. Altogether it directly employs 3.5 million people. The forest cluster is vital to the rural economy all over Europe, as well as to some key urban regions, sustaining welfare and livelihood. Innovation and the uptake of new technological advances will prove fundamental in fuelling the continued growth and buoyancy of the wood industry in years to come, especially in light of global competition and new material alternatives.
If the viability of the wood processing industry decreases, the entire cluster will suffer. In order to compete with other materials and to be attractive to customers, a durability of treated wood facades of at least 5-8 years renovation-free should be guaranteed.
However, tougher new European legislation has seen the increasing replacement of solvent-borne coating systems by water-borne coatings for outdoor wood preservation purposes. Wooden facades treated with water-borne coatings are more susceptible to discolouring and damage by mould and blue stain fungi. Mould fungi grow primarily on the surface of the paint film and harm the appearance of wood surfaces as a result of by means of their pigmented spores. Blue-stain fungi are capable of colonising the surface as well as the wood and wood-coating interface. They can penetrate the coating film enzymatically and mechanically and thereby damage its protective functioning against the elements. This damage can lead to costly repair work after only a few years of service life.
Therefore, in order to sustain the use of wood materials in the face of growing competition from other materials, a clear need exists for cost-effective wood protection methods that do not contain the toxic preservatives that have been used in the past, but which are capable of offering comparing durability.
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