Bona Partners with WeForest to Grow Trees and Restore Forests in Brazil

Partnership aligns to Bona’s vision to lead the sustainability transformation of its industry, caring for people and the planet, and being carbon neutral by 2040

MALMO, Sweden--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Bona^®, a global, sustainably-driven company that supplies products for installing, renovating, maintaining and restoring premium floors, has partnered with WeForest, an international non profit headquartered in Belgium that specialises in restoration projects that benefit the climate, the planet and people.

“Restoring our global forests, particularly in regions such as South America and Africa, is one of the most direct ways to positively impact the climate,” said Magnus Andersson, president and CEO at Bona. “This partnership aligns to the core of our business at Bona which encourages floor renovation rather than replacing the flooring material which often ends up in landfill.”

WeForest conserves and restores the ecological integrity of forests and landscapes and engages communities to implement and deliver lasting solutions for climate, nature, and people. WeForest’s goal is to reach over 100 million trees restored or conserved by the end of 2024.

“WeForest was created to address one of the biggest challenges of our time: climate change,” says Jessica Chalmers, WeForest's Partnerships & Communications Director. “730 billion tonnes of CO₂ must be actively removed from the atmosphere during this century in order to limit global warming to 1.5°C, and natural climate solutions such as forest restoration have the potential to achieve a third of that by 2030.”

Bona is specifically supporting WeForest’s Brazil project in the state of São Paulo. The Tietê river in the Atlantic Biome is a powerhouse, yet is one of the most polluted rivers in Brazil. WeForest and AES Brasil are collaborating to restore the forest on the edges of the Tietê river and its tributaries with native species, protecting water bodies from soil siltation and runoff from herbicides and pesticides. The project is also providing a testing ground for pioneering restoration approaches that aim to reduce the use of herbicides – which are usually relied on in Brazil to control invasive grasses – or even eliminate them entirely.

For more than 100 years Bona has embraced its mission to bring out the beauty in floors while delivering on a promise to minimize environmental impact by innovating safer systems and products to the highest sustainability standards. Bona’s sustainability platform is rooted in the three pillars of Home, Health, Humanity with a vision to lead the sustainability transformation of our industry, caring for people and the planet. As part of this vision Bona is committed to three sub-visions -- reducing environmental impact, being carbon neutral by 2040, business growth through healthy and innovative choices, and fair and equal opportunities for our employees and supply chain.

About Bona

Bona is a family-owned, sustainably driven company that supplies products for installing, renovating, maintaining and restoring premium floors. Founded in 1919, Bona was the first in the industry to offer a full system of waterborne hardwood floor finishing and floor care products. Today, Bona offers products for most premium floor surfaces including wood, tile, vinyl, resilient, rubber and laminate. Bona’s turnover is 3.1bn SEK (EUR 307 million) 2021. The head office is in Malmö, Sweden, and the company is represented globally by its 17 subsidiaries, 70 distributors, 4 production units and 600 employees. For more visit www.bona.com.