Coas Secures Patent for Upcycling Wildfire-Damaged Timber Technology... Launches Mass Production of ESG Office Full Package

Coas Inspire Core Series (Provided by Coas)

Coas, a company specializing in office furniture (CEO Noh Byungkoo), announced that it has acquired a patent (registration number 10-2990166) from the Korean Intellectual Property Office for a “manufacturing technology for wood-based furniture components utilizing wildfire-damaged timber (charred timber),” which was jointly filed with Dongwha Enterprise. The company explained that this move is aimed at further strengthening its technological competitiveness in carbon storage practices and its ESG strategy furniture business.

This patent covers a technology for manufacturing wood components for furniture by removing the carbonized layer and bark from wildfire-damaged timber and then applying a biodegradable binder. Its distinguishing feature is that it enables the recycling of wildfire-damaged timber—which was previously difficult to utilize—as a material for furniture.

By using timber resources that were previously left unattended or simply discarded as core materials in office furniture, Coas expects to foster a virtuous cycle in forest resource utilization and provide enterprise clients who purchase its furniture with tangible improvements in key ESG evaluation indicators.

Coas plans to apply this patented technology to its Inspire Core Series (including the Core Light Series) and pursue mass production of carbon storage certified products, thereby increasing both product competitiveness and marketing effectiveness. Unlike the prevailing practice in the industry, where only select flagship models receive eco-friendly certification, Coas will designate all items as eligible for certification under the same standards. The result is a structure that allows the total carbon storage level of an entire office space to be quantified, regardless of how individual product combinations are configured.

According to Coas, approximately 30.4 kgCO₂ of carbon is stored in a one-person office set from the Inspire Core Series. For an office with 100 employees, this equates to about 3,040 kgCO₂. This amount corresponds to the carbon emissions generated by approximately 25.3 round trips by passenger car between Seoul and Busan, or about one year and eight months of electricity usage for a four-person household. These carbon storage figures are based on the official notification of carbon storage in wood products as measured by the Korea Forest Service.

Test results in the patent specification showed that wood components processed using this technology tend to have improved mechanical properties compared to regular wood and other reference materials. When the biodegradable binder was applied, the emission levels of formaldehyde (HCHO) and total volatile organic compounds (TVOC) were also lower than those of the control samples.

Shin Seungtae, Director of the Product Development Research Center at Coas, stated, "The registration of this patent is significant in that it establishes a technological basis for turning wildfire-damaged timber into a valuable resource. We plan to continue expanding certified carbon storage products and developing sustainable office products going forward."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.