Australian Design Review (ADR) recently reunited with Crafted Hardwoods director and founder Geoffrey Swinbourne to unpack the rewards and challenges of the manufacturer’s first year in business. 

Swinbourne is determined to play a part in remedying the limitations and setbacks of Australia’s sustainable and regenerative product market. 

Crafted Hardwoods director and founder Geoffrey Swinbourne refuses to burn out from first-year fever. In fact, he is just as excited about the immense potential and prospect of the sustainable timber product now as he was in March last year, when he and his wife Cristel Morin established Crafted Hardwoods – now a proud sponsor of the IDEA Retail category. 

“We really do want to try and do some good,” says Swinbourne. “And we’ve got an amazing material that can make a difference.” He takes up the helm of a company fuelled by humility and driven to learn from those more experienced. 

“Every day uncovers another potential opportunity or angle and we get excited and think, ‘oh my gosh, you could use it for this’,” says Swinbourne.

Crafted Hardwoods is converting sustainably sourced, low-value pulp grade resources – usually destined for wood chips and export – into premium hardwoods. The end product is a solid engineered hardwood timber sporting the look and feel of conventional timber and properties that rival century-old trees. 

Unlike other engineered timbers products, Crafted Hardwoods’ unique timbers are VOC free and recyclable, making them ideal for an array of applications, for both commercial and residential projects.

Prioritising alternative products from naturally occurring materials

In recent years, Swinbourne has been inspired by the general appetite to embrace sustainable building and working practices. “I really enjoy engaging in conversations about sustainability because not only do I get an opportunity to share what I am learning, but it gives me new insights and perspectives.” 

Swinbourne was elated to collaborate with Breathe Architecture and speak at this year’s Melbourne Design Week Material Matters 02 exhibition that focused on the boundary riders in sustainable material construction. In his discussion, Swinbourne emphasised the importance of support and inquiry in the sustainability movement, alongside his suggestion to avoid slightly paradoxical waste reduction solutions such as making products out of plastic bottles. 

“Is it going to get to the point where the plastic bottle market is making plastic bottles to service these recycled plastic bottle products?” he postulates. “Is a solution to waste in the long-term going to create another problem?”

He reiterates Crafted Hardwoods’ value as a company that makes products from naturally occurring low-carbon materials. 

“It’s something that’s grown, and I think that’s the best place to start,” says Swinbourne. Additionally, rather than relying on mature trees to produce timber, Crafted Hardwoods’ process uses pulpwood – the lowest-grade product in a forest, and in many cases, the most abundant. 

While cautious to refrain from criticising the logging community, Swinbourne is stifled by the statistics surrounding the underused offcuts from logged wood.

“Globally, 44 percent of what is logged gets passed as low-value pulp – the average over the last 10 years in Australia is 49 percent and some years that has been 52 or 53 percent,” he says. Swinbourne argues that half of Australia’s logged materials could be much better used. 

“It’s a challenge because it’s not our intention to point the finger at the logging community, because in a sense, we are part of it” he says. “And we don’t see ourselves replacing traditional logging, we see ourselves as an additional supply. We divert the resources that are considered low-value by the industry and turn them into a product with much more value-add.”

Sustainability much bigger than the three R’s

Sustainability extends beyond the realm of reduce, reuse and recycle. Swinbourne cites the 17 Goals for Sustainable Development by the United Nations as an invaluable resource for those unsure about the depth of sustainability. Crafted Hardwoods relies on this resource and has selected six goals that align with its mission and purpose. 

“What I’ve been uncovering in the last 12 months is that people don’t always realise all the facets of sustainability,” says Swinbourne. “And I was like that. I’d never really understood the full depth of it.” 

“It makes you realise it’s so much bigger. It’s not just climate and clean water and air, it’s poverty and hunger and equal employment and education opportunity.”

When ADR spoke to Swinbourne last November, he spoke of an aspiration to pursue cultural and social sustainability and become one of the first blue collar companies in Australia to operate on a four-day working week on a full-time salary. He confirms all measures and policies are ready to be launched, it is just reliant on staff acquisition. Crafted Hardwoods is currently a small but mighty team of four, Swinbourne included. 

“It all comes into play as we get bigger,” he says. “As we go through B Corp certification they ask all of these questions and we don’t qualify yet because we’re not big enough.”

Since day one, the company has been allocating funding towards biodiversity restoration and has pledged financial support to local charities. “We are very committed to do what we can, where we can to play our part,” says Swinbourne. 

Harnessing the power of interdisciplinary efforts 

Swinbourne describes the absence of competitiveness in the sustainability community and the willingness of people to bolster each other and share ideas as heartening. 

Every day the Crafted Hardwoods team interacts with people who are empowered by the wider decarbonisation journey and are willing to adapt their product to suit the innovative sustainable timber. 

Swinbourne sees value in interdisciplinary efforts. “Everyone wants to help each other,” he says. “We’ve got to band together – and ask people for help. Power in numbers.” 

He addresses that expensive set-up costs hint at the need for collaborative spaces and hubs – akin to shared showrooms – where like-minded people from different disciplines can converge and craft a soundboard of ideas. 

“I’d love to bring together a few people to do a showroom of sustainable materials where an architect could come in and pick the materials they want to specify, knowing that everything in the room meets a certain standard,” says Swinbourne.

“I think the best thing we can all do for each other is talk.”Organisations such as the Sustainable Builders Alliance have Swinbourne’s appreciation – particularly after Crafted Hardwoods participated in a webinar with the alliance in late May. “They’re amazing and so enthusiastic and there’s a lot of signatories through the alliance,” says Swinbourne.

 

Rejecting perfectionism in the sustainability movement

A year in, Swinbourne also addresses the difficulties of responding to customer expectations and standards.  

For example, Crafted Hardwoods has encountered people who claim to want to embrace sustainable building practices yet quickly lose interest when they are informed that a joint needs to be inserted into a section of wood to lengthen it. Some have maintained the inserting joints diminishes aesthetic value, even though it is barely noticeable. 

“When you look around in timber, there’s joints everywhere,” says Swinbourne. “And for some reason, if there’s a joint in conventional timber, no one questions it, but because our timber has gone through an engineering process, people’s expectations change, and they don’t want to see a joint in it.” 

Crafted Hardwoods produce billets that are dimensionally consistent at 2500 millimetres by 500 millimetres by 250 millimetres – this size maximises output while minimising waste and ensures as much of each tree is used. The billets are then cut and finished as required and can be joined to achieve longer lengths. Swinbourne explains producing longer billets would have been achievable, yet not without compromising sustainability.

“We have to move away from that thinking – having a sustainable material that is perfect in every way.” 

Such an obstacle, far from deterring the Crafted Hardwoods’ team, has prompted Morin to refine the company’s marketing and communication styles. “She is on a mission to make joints fashionable again!” says Swinbourne.

Receptiveness and trust gained through brand reputability and transparency

Credibility is an integral value for Crafted Hardwoods. From her post as head of marketing and administration, Morin has worked tirelessly to ensure the most environmentally responsible practices are undertaken to protect company reputability.

“She’s doing a deep dive into all of the research and making sure that everything we say is right,” says Swinbourne. 

Crafted Hardwoods’ complex and fascinating process of turning pulp into timber can be hard to explain, but the team welcomes all queries and critiques. ‘It’s really important for us when people ask a question. [If] we haven’t had that question before, [it’s a case of] ‘let’s find out’.”

The company is also working to dismantle snap judgments – people are understandably wary of a new and innovative product due to inchoate understandings of sustainability. 

“I think over the years there’s been other products that on the surface look similar to us and people are making assumptions,” says Swinbourne. “And a lot of people had bad experiences with these products, so we can absolutely understand the hesitation.” 

Although Crafted Hardwoods still comes across people hesitant to take the plunge, the team is comforted by the enthusiasm and interest from the wider architecture and design community and construction and trades sector.

Crafted Hardwoods recently hosted tours of its Adelaide factory and invited potential customers to observe the complete line of operation. This process transforms piles of pulpwood veneers into 300 kilogram solid timber logs in a matter of minutes. “The tours have been hugely successful and a brilliant way to demonstrate our expertise and capabilities” shares Swinbourne. 

Lengthy and expensive certification process disadvantages Australia 

The past year has seen Swinbourne occasionally discouraged by Australia’s arduous testing and certification process which comes with hefty financial costs capable of deterring people from sustaining momentum.

“To get one species of timber tested and certified for the key standards is roughly $50,000. We have half a dozen species available, with more currently in research and development. Choosing which tests and species to prioritise has been a real challenge.”

Swinbourne describes the testing and certification process in Australia as marked by red tape and hoop-jumping. “I feel Australia is a bit behind the rest of the world. It would make it a lot easier and efficient if Australia updated all of their standards.”

Navigating volatile timber pricing with proactive solutions

Perfecting the price of Crafted Hardwoods’ timber has been a somewhat difficult task, Swinbourne says, as timber has been prone to historically “volatile pricing” due to the lifecycle of a project. 

“The start of design through to practical completion can be three years,” says Swinbourne. “When a builder starts to budget a project for timber, by the time they actually get to the point of procuring it, pricing’s changed – it’s gone up.”

However, Crafted Hardwoods adapted to this obstacle proactively, demonstrating its discipline and unwavering commitment to sustainability. 

“We changed our standard quote terms from 30 days to 12 months to be able to give contractors a bit of peace of mind that if they price a job today, in nine months time the pricing will still be the same and there’s been a lot of enthusiasm about that,” says Swinbourne.

Collaboration with other regenerative building material pursuits

Swinbourne is inspired by the ingenuity and creativity behind numerous ventures in alternative building materials.

“It’s encouraging to see that we’ve got people taking waste out of the environment and turning it into products,” he says. When ADR asks Swinbourne if there is the possibility for Crafted Hardwoods to collaborate with other organisations or universities, he acknowledges the need to temper ambition to avoid taking on too much work. 

“There’s just so many different avenues that we can be chasing – it’s hard to keep up with all the ideas and possibilities. At the moment, we’ve got our hands full!”

Encouraged by endless possibilities

Twelve months on, Swinbourne is more confident than ever in Crafted Hardwoods’ ability to foster growth, sustainability and have a positive impact on communities. 

“I imagine that even if we ended up one day being a behemoth of a company, we’re still only going to be scratching the surface of what’s potentially available in the iceberg,” says Swinbourne. “There are endless opportunities ahead and our journey is just beginning.”

Photography supplied by Crafted Hardwoods. 

Environmental by design – the sustainability goals driving MillerKnoll.