Danzer Group

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Important information is missing from this article or section. Help Wikipedia by researching and pasting it .

Danzer Holding AG

logo
legal form Corporation
founding 1932
Seat Dornbirn , Austria
management Hans-Joachim Danzer
Number of employees 2,500 (2014)
sales 232 million euros (2014)
Branch raw materials
Website www.danzer.com

Danzer is an Austrian group of companies in the wood processing industry with headquarters in Dornbirn . Danzer produces and sells real wood veneers and lumber made from hardwood for decorative applications. According to its own information, Danzer is the world's largest producer of decorative sliced ​​veneer and one of the ten leading manufacturers of sawn timber in North America.

Corporate structure

Danzer has production facilities in Europe, North America and Africa. Regionally harvested wood is primarily processed at all locations and marketed from there to over 80 countries worldwide. The company employed around 2000 people in 2012. The production facilities are located at the following locations:

history

Veneers , a central business area of ​​Danzer AG

The company was founded in 1932 by the German Karl Danzer as Karl Danzer, Courtier en bois et placages in Paris (France) as a broker of high-quality burl wood and exotic types of wood. In 1936 Danzer took a stake in a Hamburg timber import company and a veneer trading company and returned to Germany.

After the Second World War , Danzer founded a wood and veneer business in Metzingen in 1946, and from 1947 he set up his first own veneer factory in Reutlingen , which went into operation in 1949. In 1955, a veneer factory under construction in Kehl was purchased and a chipboard factory was built in the immediate vicinity , to which a panel and door production facility was later attached.

In 1958, Karl Danzer entered into a partnership with Idisore Elefant and Victor Grossmann. Together they bought General Woods and Veneers with locations in Canada and the USA.

From the 1960s, the company was internationalized and restructured several times. In 1960 the first concessions were acquired in Ivory Coast . In 1962 Interholco AG was founded in Switzerland, which took over the marketing of African products. In 1964 the Belgian Miguet Group was taken over, at the time the largest veneer dealer. In 1966 a woodworking plant was opened in Vavoua , Ivory Coast. Expansion to Brazil followed in 1968 with the takeover of the MASUL company , a veneer factory in São Paulo, and in 1969 with MABASA in Salvador da Bahia .

In 1970 the partnership with Idisore Elefant and Victor Grossmann was ended. In 1972 Danzer acquired David R. Webb in Indiana, and in 1974 Interforest in Ontario, Canada.

In the 1980s the focus was on veneers, in 1987 the plant in Kehl was partially closed and that in Reutlingen completely. However, the administration remained in Reutlingen.

In the 1990s, the North American business was expanded. In the veneer sector, Penn Beaver Corp., Keystone Veneers Inc and The Dean Company were acquired. With the construction of the Bradford sawmill in 1989, Danzer entered lumber production in the USA. Two more sawmills were bought.

In September 2006 the Danzer Group and the World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) entered into a cooperation with a view to sustainable forest use in Africa. At the time, the WWF listed Danzer on its homepage as a “partner company”. This cooperation was terminated a short time later without a press release, the WWF does not include Danzer in its list of "Completed Company Cooperations".

In 2008 the group took over Reholz GmbH , based in Kesselsdorf . This had developed a patented process with which veneers can be deformed three-dimensionally without tearing. With these so-called 3D veneers, shapes can be created for the furniture and automotive industries, for example, while the wood structure and veneer appearance are retained.

Due to the rapidly decreasing demand for real wood veneers and their substitution by wood imitations, the veneer market has shrunk massively worldwide. The economic crisis accelerated the downward trend. Danzer Group closed the veneer production in Brazil, Belgium, Germany and Canada step by step. The lumber production in the USA was massively reduced. In February 2013, the two Congolese subsidiaries Siforco and Cotraco were sold to Groupe Blattner Elwyn (GBE) without giving any reason .

In January 2015, Danzer moved its headquarters from Baar in Switzerland to Dornbirn in Austria for tax and economic reasons . The operative veneer business in Europe moved from Baar to Salzburg in Austria. Management and sales for Africa will remain in Switzerland.

criticism

Greenpeace

The logging of Danzer in the rainforest of the Congo Basin is repeatedly criticized

In June 2004 Greenpeace International accused the group of companies in the so-called “Forest Crime File” of buying illegally felled African timber and paying bribes to officials in Central Africa and Cameroon . Greenpeace filed two criminal charges against the Swiss Danzer subsidiary Interholco and its fellow participants in terms of involvement in bribery of foreign officials and forgery of documents . The Federal Prosecutor's Office then initiated a preliminary investigation, which was discontinued on December 21, 2004. In January 2005, Greenpeace then submitted a second, updated report in which the allegations were repeated.

On April 11, 2007, Greenpeace published the report “Carving Up The Congo”, in which allegations were made against the Siforco company regarding its actions in the Congo Basin . Danzer published a detailed statement on April 27, 2007, in which the industrial use of the rainforest is defended.

On July 30, 2008, Greenpeace alleged that the corporation used an elaborate system of shifting profits to move income from Africa into offshore bank accounts. This allows Danzer to avoid tax payments in the countries in which its companies operate. In a statement dated July 30, 2008, Danzer rejected these allegations as unfounded.

On November 7, 2011, Greenpeace raised again allegations against the Danzer subsidiary Siforco in the report Stolen Future: Conflicts and Deforestation in the Rainforests of the Congo - The Danzer Case. According to the report, Siforco was allegedly directly involved in human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Specifically, it is about an attack on the forest community of Yasilika in the province of Bumba-Equateur, which Siforco supported logistically and financially, according to the report. Danzer denied the allegations, stating that the events occurred beyond the control and responsibility of Siforco.

FSC

In 2009 the subsidiary IFO in the Republic of the Congo was certified according to the guidelines of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). The FSC-certified sawn timber and logs are sold by Danzer's subsidiaries Interholco and Danzer UK , while FSC-certified veneers are available from Danzer Europe Veneer (DEV). In 2011, however, only five out of 64 veneers in the range were FSC-certified. Critics also complain that the “selective logging” operated by Danzer is not scientifically but commercially justified. This would drastically reduce biodiversity .

Background to the separation and resumption of FSC membership

Based on the incidents in Yalisika in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on May 1 and 2, 2011, a complaint panel was initiated at FSC against the Danzer Group. The then subsidiary SIFORCO (Société Industrielle et Forestière du Congo) was accused of being jointly responsible for the use of force by the police and militia against the residents of Yalisika.

On May 21, 2013, Danzer Group was excluded from the FSC. The reason given for the separation was that the allegations that the former Danzer subsidiary Siforco was involved in human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo could not be finally dispelled in public. Danzer has therefore recognized the assessment of the FSC that the public opinion of the time represented a reputational risk for the FSC brand. Danzer and all of its subsidiaries lost their FSC certifications and the right to use the FSC trademarks.

Immediately after the events in Yalisika, Danzer commissioned the certification company Société Générale de Surveillance with an on-site audit . SGS came to the conclusion that SIFORCO had acted correctly under the circumstances. In addition, an earlier SGS audit of the Danzer subsidiary IFO (Industrie Forestière d 'Ouesso) was checked again by the auditor ASI (Accreditation Services International). The ASI test came to the result "best of class".

After the suspension of FSC certification, Danzer and the peace research institute Swisspeace reviewed the company's existing conflict resolution mechanisms and developed new standards for its business activities in the Congo Basin and beyond. The requirements of FSC were fully taken into account. Danzer implements the code of conduct for the constructive resolution of conflicts contained in the guidelines worldwide, especially in Africa. The results were published in the manual “Conflict Sensitivity Due Diligence for Timbre Companies in the Congo Basin”.

With effect from August 2014, the FSC decided that Danzer has fully met all conditions for re-admission to FSC membership. The independent non-governmental organization Forest Peoples Program (FPP) audited the implementation of the agreements with the FSC by Danzer. Danzer is again in possession of the chain-of-custody certification for Europe, North America and America and can offer FSC-certified and “Controlled Wood” products. Danzer had agreed with the FSC, as a prerequisite for resumption of membership, to carry out construction work in the village of Yalisika (Democratic Republic of the Congo). In addition, Danzer has committed itself to developing strategies and methods for conflict avoidance and conflict management on site.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Danzer moves headquarters to Dornbirn. In: vorarlberg.orf.at. March 4, 2015, accessed November 24, 2017 .
  2. ↑ a b danzergroup.com
  3. ↑ Shade Gap, Pennsylvania in the English language Wikipedia
  4. ↑ danzergroup.com  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.danzergroup.com  
  5. ↑ http://www.wwf.de/z Zusammenarbeit-mit-unternehmen/abgeschlossen-unternehmenskooperationen-und-charities /
  6. ↑ holz.net
  7. ↑ http://www.euwid-holz.de/news/rundholzschnittholz/einzelansicht/Artikel/danzer-verkauf-kongolesische-siforco.html
  8. ↑ Danzer adapts its legal structure to the requirements of the business. - Company press release dated November 10, 2014.
  9. ↑ Danzer relocates the holding company to Dornbirn. - Report on EUWID of March 5, 2015.
  10. ↑ greenpeace.de  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.greenpeace.de  
  11. ↑ greenpeace.de (PDF; 446 kB)
  12. ↑ greenpeace.org (PDF; 4.9 MB)
  13. ↑ danzergroup.com (PDF)
  14. ↑ greenpeace.de ( Memento of the original from September 1, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.greenpeace.de
  15. ↑ danzergroup.com (PDF)
  16. ↑ greenpeace.de ( Memento of the original dated November 13, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.greenpeace.de
  17. ↑ danzergroup.com
  18. ↑ danzergroup.com  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.danzergroup.com  
  19. ↑ http://www.danzerveneer.com/ , accessed on November 7, 2011
  20. ↑ regenwald.org
  21. ↑ FSC press release: Forest Stewardship Council separates from Danzer Group
  22. ↑ SGS report, on the Yalisika incident see page 19 ff.
  23. ↑ https://ic.fsc.org/download.danzer-press-release-process-german.a-2302.pdf Press release of the Danzer Group on the website of the FSC
  24. ^ Manual Swisspeace Conflict Sensitivity Due Diligence for Timber Companies in the Congo Basin
  25. ↑ https://ic.fsc.org/fsc-press-release.638.857.htm