Innovative yarns | FSC®-certified wallpapers

The FSC®’s Forest Management Certification is a trusted and widespread system that “confirms that the forest is being managed in a way that preserves biological diversity and benefits the lives of local people and workers, while ensuring it sustains economic viability.”

Championing long-term stewardship through responsible management, the certification guarantees that operators adhere to 10 key principles ranging from maintaining high conservation values to community relations and workers’ rights, as well as monitoring the environmental and social impacts of forest management.

FSC® paper comes from forests that:
o   Comply with applicable laws
o   Recognize workers’ rights and maintain adequate employment conditions
o   Respect indigenous peoples’ rights
o   Reinforce community relations
o   Practice healthy management planning, monitoring, and assessment
o   Efficiently manage the range of benefits from forests
o   Conserve or restore the environment, and avoid, repair, or mitigate negative impacts
o   Maintain the highest conservation values including species diversity and proportionate harvesting

Less than 5% of global milling is carried out to produce paper-based products, such as newsprint, leaflets, and packaging, and over 70% of this 5% is recyclable within Europe. 

Most European paper manufacturing relies upon fast-growing softwoods (spruce and pine) which are sourced from Scandinavia. Hardwoods, such as those growing in tropical rain forests, are never used to manufacture wallpaper. Because of the speed at which these softwoods grow (typically taking 20-30 years to reach a usable size) there is an ongoing programme of replacing logged trees with young saplings, thus ensuring a continuous, inexhaustible supply of suitable timber. In the majority of Scandinavian countries, it is against the law to cut down more than 2% of the forest in any one season.

Given that the majority of forests are jointly privately and state owned and that the trees are grown as a commodity, implementing responsible crop management ensures that the forests are healthily maintained for both the local wildlife and the forest owners themselves. To support this forest management process, and in response to environmental concerns over the perceived depletion of forests, a recording system was jointly implemented by forestry and paper mill owners.

The movement of the timber, from leaving the forest to being printed as wallpaper and delivered to the customer, is recorded and provided as a pattern and batch number with each individual roll. Therefore, guaranteeing that the wallpaper was sourced from a sustainable forest.

Our Mokum wallpapers are printed by a world-renown mill in the United Kingdom who have been producing wallpapers for over 100 years. As the largest contract wallpaper manufacturer in the United Kingdom, with over 19 print machines capable of all printing processes, balancing the large quantity of base paper required is essential. Therefore, all paper supplied to the mill is FSC®-Certified and forests are replanted to safeguard future production.

Our iridescent Mizu Garden, Nightbird Symphony, and Royal Peacock are either gravure or digitally printed onto an uncoated non-woven substrate. Uncoated non-woven paper is composed of a combination of natural fibres (i.e. cellulose obtained from wood) and synthetic fibres, which are also used to make coffee filters and teabags. 

This substrate is very durable and resembles parchment, making it a popular choice amongst manufacturers. In addition to being easier to install and remove than traditional paper, it also has a lower carbon footprint and, when digitally printed, no ink is wasted or harmful chemicals are used, making it a more environmentally friendly choice.