Going green in 1972|Building a sustainable past, present and future

Fifty years ago, "being green" was likely more associated with Kermit the Frog than with environmental responsibility. While ecological awareness had been documented in various ways for thousands of years, efforts to “go green” were new. 

It wasn’t until 1970 that the U.S. government created the Environmental Protection Agency. That same year, the U.S. also observed its very first Earth Day. Despite these landmark occasions, the environment wasn’t a priority for most; and it would be years before anyone mentioned the acronym “ESG.”

JELD-WEN founder Dick Wendt

But, in 1972, JELD-WEN founder Dick Wendt made a commitment to reduce waste byproduct. The newly formed JELD-WEN, just over a decade old at the time, made a bold decision that would set the stage for decades of environmental commitment.

As a high-user of whole logs in the manufacturing of JELD-WEN products, the unavoidable waste created in the milling process was concerning to company leaders.

“You had the waste from our ripping and cutting of lumber,” recalled JELD-WEN founder Dick Wendt. “Then you take those cut stock pieces and you develop more waste when you take the excess material off.  When you add it all up, 50 percent is waste, and we were paying to have that waste hauled off.”

JELD-WEN was able to sell some of the sawdust and other wood waste to paper mills, but leaders in the company were committed to finding ways to make products from wood waste.

In 1972, JELD-WEN studied the feasibility of using waste material in useful ways.  Decades later, efforts like these would fall under sustainability programs across the manufacturing industry, but JELD-WEN was ahead of its time.

By 1974, JELD-WEN had found a way to use its wood waste and entered a new groundbreaking arena—making molded doorskins that were not only high profit, but also a waste reducer. It was also a step in the direction of what the company came to call, “high-value utilization of raw resources.” Wood chips could, for example, be burned in boilers to produce energy to run a plant. But a higher value use of those chips is to create fiber, which can be pressed into a door facing; no longer making it waste or fuel, but a high-value product.