Billions of new wood pallets are built every year to transport all the goods and services the world manufactures and consumes. That means that even small changes in how these wood pallets are constructed can further the environmental benefits that wood already provides. While wood pallets come from a biodegradable, renewable, recyclable source, choosing the sustainable way is more than just the material you select… it’s about how you use it.

Material efficiency is a relatively new term that focuses on the reduction of material usage and processing to effectively operate the global economy in a sustainable manner. Several strategies have been proposed to achieve material efficiency, including further extending a products lifetime, increasing re-usage of materials, and designing products with less material.¹

The existing economic and operational barriers sometimes make it difficult to effectively implement these strategies but there is a solution.

The intrinsic properties of wood, paired with engineering design software the Pallet Design System™ (PDS), provide an excellent opportunity to overcome these challenges.