We spoke to CEO Filip D'Haeseleer and his ‘right hand man’, Hicham Chine. Our first question takes us on a brief detour via composite wood. Denderwood may be a household name in the exotic wood market, but it still offers decking in composite wood. Why is this?

Filip D'Haeseleer: ‘99.9% of our trade is in wood, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need to consider other materials any more. And so, we’ve been selling the UPM range in the Belux for over a decade. This company supplies a top of the range composite which fits in nicely with our wood range.’

Wood from all over the world
On to the tropical wood range. What’s special about Denderwood is that it collects its wood from all over the world. Where do the wood sorts come from and what proportion is used on the terrace market?
Filip D'Haeseleer: ‘Our wood comes from Africa, Latin America, and Asia and we acquire it from local producers. We don’t look for suppliers, but rather partners who share our values in service, quality, sustainability, and reliability. This applies to both budget wood sorts like meranti, sipo, and mengkulang and to high-end sorts like ipe, padauk, doussie, and afrormosia.
Hicham Chine: ‘Just about the entire range is PEFC and FSC-approved, and for the other wood we have all sorts of certificates to prove that it is legal. This illustrates how committed we are to checking the sustainability and quality of our suppliers. At Denderwood the trajectory runs literally from the forest to the delivery to the end client inclusive.’
Filip D'Haeseleer: ‘To show the importance of terrace wood, I can say that it accounts for 10 to 15% of our total turnover.’

Belgium is still a wood market.
Hicham Chine: ‘We specialise in exotic wood, but we should also mentioned the existence of thermally treated local wood sorts. We have a definite preference for exotic wood sorts because they are untreated and still have a natural sustainability grade 1. If we compare the carbon footprint of this, everything is in favour or ‘tropical’, even if it does have a longer journey to reach the market.’

Filip D'Haeseleer on terraces: ‘Don’t forget that the Belgian market is a wood market. This contrasts with Germany, for instance, where composite plays a major part.’
During the covid years, we noted an explosion in sales. What’s the situation now?
Hicham Chine: ‘The pandemic also coincided with a huge increase in volumes here. At the moment, we’re seeing a return to the normal quantities of 2019. That is logical, with also a global impact on purchasing due to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. People are taking more care what they spend their money on, but the market has clearly stabilised now that wood prices have normalised.’

‘It’s also important to mention that wood trade is being subjected increasingly to more and more legislation. For instance, we have to take account of an increased administrative burden through the launch of the new CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) regulations for certain wood sorts. For us as an importer this affects mainly the import of the African sorts afrormosia, padauk, doussie, and kaya and the Latin American sorts ipe and cumaru.’

Sustainability as top priority
Filip D’Haeseleer: ‘The EU has also introduced new legislation to counter deforestation and guarantee biodiversity. This new legislation introduces stricter conditions for the purchase of wood in forests outside Europe. An example: If you want to buy wood from Brazil, in the future you will have to consider that you won’t get permission any more if the wood originates from a so called clear-cut or unmanaged forest. This gives us an extra demand on the purchase side, but at the same time it’s also positive because it targets both deforestation and the ‘use of land’. This covers both plantations (e.g. soya and palm oil) and meat production, for instance. Actually, this fits in perfectly with our philosophy, which makes an absolute top priority of sustainability.’