All GREEN BRANDS are united by the fact that they stand for environmental awareness, sustainability and ecological progress. It is logical that they also deserve a very special environmentally friendly trophy. And the GREEN BRANDS trophy, which our award-winning brands have been receiving since 2014, is something very special: a unique world first.
Because our trophy is carved from a very special wood. No, not carved. Printed! Never before has an award been produced in 3D printing from renewable resources. But we succeeded nevertheless.
“Never before had an award been made in 3D printing from renewable resources.”
Thanks to an extraordinary German-Austrian cooperation between the synthetics manufacturer Tecnaro and the 3D-printing company Schiner from Krems on the Danube – both have been awarded by GREEN BRANDS – our trophy is made of one hundred percent biodegradable materials. Weighing only 170 grams and hollow inside, it represents the GREEN BRANDS promise: active ecological action and active commitment to preserve the limited resources of our world.
But how does a piece of wood become a GREEN-BRANDS trophy?
It all began with a fixed idea. Shouldn’t it be possible to symbolically translate the credo of “green brands” into an environmentally friendly award? Norbert Lux, mastermind and founder of GREEN BRANDS, was passionate about the idea. His ambition was aroused. In Tecnaro and Druckhaus Schiner he found the perfect partners to turn the idea into reality.
“The aim was to combine the unique expertise of both companies to create something completely new: a GREEN-BRANDS trophy from the 3D printer, made of biopolymer material”.
The Swabian company Tecnaro, short for “Technologie nachwachsender Rohstoffe” (technology of renewable resources), specializes in the production of biodegradable materials. Tecnaro decomposes and liquefies wood to produce a plastic substitute – and is the world market leader in this field.
Druckhaus Schiner from Krems, the first and only Climate Alliance printing company in Austria, has been experimenting with 3D printing for more than a decade, creating, among other things, precise, true-to-scale and detailed house and concept models for architects – but up to now exclusively from polymer gypsum. Along its entire production chain, the printing company uses only ecologically harmless materials. So it was a logical step to extend this principle to the 3D sector.
Now it was a matter of combining the unique expertise of both companies to create something completely new: a GREEN-BRANDS trophy from the 3D printer, made of biopolymer material.
For five months, experts from both companies worked hard to make the raw material produced by Tecnaro suitable for 3D printing, to create a digital 3D model of the trophy on the computer and finally to print it.
But from the beginning: the “liquid wood” that Tecnaro produces – also called Arboblend or Liquid Wood – consists of lignin as well as other natural fibres such as flax and hemp. The material was developed in 1998 by Tecnaro founders Jürgen Pfitzner and Helmut Nägele, then employees of the Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology (ICT). Their idea: to tap new natural raw material sources in order to become less dependent on oil.
Today, their materials produced on the basis of renewable raw materials are not only used in watch cases and golf tees, but also in shoes and sunglasses for the fashion house Gucci, clothes hangers for Benetton or carbon-ceramic brakes for Porsche, Bentley or Lamborghini.
However, Arboblend was initially not suitable for 3D printing. Special adaptations were necessary because three-dimensional printing requires so-called filaments that can only be used in a defined material thickness. Viscosity and elasticity are just as important for this as dimensional stability and impact strength.
Tecnaro therefore processed its Arboblend into a granulate. In months of development in cooperation with the Linz-based Kompetenzzentrum Holz and other specialists for plastics prototyping, the Krems-based printing company succeeded in extruding filaments from Tecnaro’s newly developed granulate that met the technical requirements for 3D printing.
The printers around managing director Jörn-Henrik Stein produced filaments from the plastic substitute, melted it down and added colour pigments. Spruce flour was added for better elasticity. After numerous experiments, Druckhaus Schiner succeeded in using the filaments for 3D printing and – for the first time ever – producing biopolymer-based models with a 3D printer. It was done!
The innovative Lower Austrians printed day and night. After two weeks of uninterrupted printing on two 3D devices, all GREEN-BRANDS trophies were ready for the 2014 awards ceremony.
“GREEN BRANDS is a quality seal with promise: Brands and companies that actively assume ecological and sustainable responsibility and act in a resource-saving manner should also hold a correspondingly environmentally friendly trophy in their hands”.
Our trophy finally had its world premiere on December 1, 2014 in Vienna. There it was awarded to the award-winning Austrian GREEN BRANDS for the first time. Norbert Lux, Chief Operating Officer of Green Brands and initiator of the ecological 3D Award, proudly presented the unique trophy at that time.
Since then it has been awarded to all GREEN BRANDS in Austria, Germany and other countries. Because GREEN BRANDS is a quality seal with promise: Brands and companies that actively assume ecological and sustainable responsibility and act in a resource-saving manner should also hold a correspondingly environmentally friendly trophy in their hands – from the 3D printer made of biopolymer material, 100 percent renewable raw materials, biodegradable and produced by Druckhaus Schiner from Krems in Lower Austria with material from the Swabian company Tecnaro.
