Innovative Lightweight Boards

In our view, lightweight boards are IKEA's appropriate answer to fundamental changes in modern societies, e.g. higher mobility and increasing number of single-person households. Furthermore, lightweight technology creates valuable benefits for our furniture manufacturing customers: lightweight boards reduce raw-material and transport costs and can be handled more efficiently in furniture production.

In addition, by enhancing transport efficiency and reducing the demand for resources in the production process, lightweight products support SWEDSPAN's sustainability approach.

Competence in lightweight boards

SWEDSPAN is striving to become the leading supplier of lightweight boards that meet the requirements of the furniture-production value chains. Our R&D activities focus on the following approaches:

• classic wood based panel approach:
  (e.g. functionally adapted lightweight concepts for particle board applications)
• composite-materials approach:
  (e.g. boards with innovative additives to reduce density)
• sandwich materials approach:
  (e.g. lightweight-panel sandwiches with ultra-thin HDF top layers)