By
Quynh Nguyen

Sapele is a durable hardwood from Africa – a highly-prized alternative to genuine mahogany. It is stronger and harder than mahogany and can be a long-lasting material for furniture, luxury flooring, and musical instruments. However, the population of sapele trees has been decreasing fast due to the timber’s popularity. So, we had to ask: How sustainable is it to buy products made of sapele wood?

Sapele wood is generally a sustainable material because of the trees’ high carbon sequestration potential. However, sapele trees grow slowly and are subject to overexploitation due to the increasing popularity of their timber, making it less sustainable to use sapele in furniture and flooring.

In this article, we’ll walk you through the life-cycle of sapele wood used for floors, musical instruments, and other woodworking projects. Then, we evaluate its sustainability, potential, and shortfalls. And in the end, we’ll show you tips for buying sustainable sapele wood. 

Here’s How Sustainable Sapele Wood Is

Sapele is largely a sustainable material because of the trees’ carbon sequestration and the carbon offset value at the end of any products made with sapele wood. 

“Sustainable: The ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level | Avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance”

Oxford Dictionary

To better understand the sustainability of cypress wood, we assess the life-cycle of products like furniture or musical instruments. This life-cycle assessment (LCA) is a method to evaluate the environmental impacts of each stage in a product’s life-cycle, from the making to the recycling. Over the years, companies have strategically used LCA to research and create more sustainable products. 

In this article, we’ll use the cradle-to-grave perspective of the LCA, examining the five stages of the life cycle of sapele wood. Where it is relevant, we also use data from cradle-to-gate assessments. 

The life-cycle stages of sapele wood	Each stage’s sustainability
Growing of sapele wood	Growing sapele trees is sustainable thanks to carbon sequestration during the tree’s lifespan.
Manufacturing of sapele wood	Turning sapele wood into furniture or musical instruments can have a relatively low carbon footprint when wood waste is utilized to make by-products or biomass pellets to offset the carbon emissions during harvesting and processing. Significant reduction in carbon emissions can also come from using fossil-free energy.
Transporting of sapele wood	Transporting is a carbon-intensive stage in the life cycle of sapele furniture, flooring, and musical instruments due to the emissions associated with operating the hauling vehicles that take timber to sawmills and factories, then furniture to stores. Because sapele trees grow in Africa, sapele timber travels much further to reach customers in the US than domestic hardwoods.
Usage of sapele wood	Using sapele furniture and musical instruments can be sustainable thanks to the carbon capture during the products’ long life.
End-of-life of sapele wood	The end-of-life stage for sapele furniture and musical instruments is sustainable when the wood is reused or burned as bioenergy.

Overall, sapele wood is sustainable. However, the actual environmental impact of a particular product, be it a table or a guitar, depends on many factors, especially the distance and mode of transportation. Let’s dive deeper into each stage and find out how it can be more sustainable. 

How Sustainable Is the Growing of Sapele Wood

Growing sapele trees is sustainable thanks to carbon sequestration during the tree’s lifespan. 

What Type of Wood is Sapele and What Does This Mean for Sustainability

Sapele wood comes from trees in the genus Entandrophragma cylindricum, a long-lived, slow-growing hardwood species native to tropical Africa. 

The growth rate of a sapele tree is generally slow, though it varies depending on location and growing conditions.

• Seedlings grow slowly, incrementing 7 to 15 inches every year. 
• However, growth rate increases as sapele trees age. 
• The average annual height increase during the first 40 years of sapele trees planted in lines in Cameroon forests was reported as 11 to 20 inches. 
• In the open, this species can grow faster: 30 inches per year in the first seven years. 

How Sustainably Does Sapele Wood Grow

Sapele trees’ sustainability lies in their carbon sequestration potential. 

As sapele trees grow, they absorb CO₂ from the atmosphere while releasing oxygen. They act as a carbon sink during their long lifespan. Sapele trees can live over 500 years. 

As a carbon sink, sapele trees pull greenhouse gasses out of the atmosphere, helping to mitigate the climate crisis. 

Trees store as much carbon as 50% of their dry weights. Thus, a tree stores more carbon as it grows taller and bigger. Though sapele trees grow slowly, they can reach a large size. In their natural habitats, the height of sapele trees ranges from 100 to 150 feet. Some sapele trees can reach 200 feet. The range of diameters in a sapele tree is 4 to 6 feet. 

Where Is Sapele Wood Usually Grown

Sapele is native to tropical Africa. They grow naturally in the rainforests of the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya. 

Harvesting sapele wood in the trees’ natural habitat can result in the biodiversity loss. 

One example is when loggers only cut down the biggest and tallest trees. That pattern would cause a reduction in the genetic diversity and quality of the trees within the stand, leading to gradual degradation of tree quality. 

Cutting down sapele trees also disrupts the forests’ wild animals as the leaves and fruits feed various mammals and birds while the foliage provides shelter for wildlife. 

For example, sapele trees provide habitat for rare monkey species, such as Thollon’s red colobus and mandrills. 

The African rainforests – sapele trees’ native habitat – are unique. Interestingly, these forests store more carbon than those in the Amazon rainforests. On average, a hectare of African rainforest stores 1.3 times more carbon than the same area of the Amazonian rainforest. 

The biggest problems with sapele wood’s sustainability are exploitation and a decline in its natural range. Sapele is listed on the IUCN Red List as “vulnerable” due to a 20%+ population reduction in the past three generations. 

The only way for you as a consumer to tackle problems caused by unsustainable logging practices is to source sustainable woods. We will point you in the right direction with sapele at the end of this article. 

In total, logging of forestry products from plantations accounts for 26% of forest loss, which is a combination of deforestation and forest degradation. However, the loss in bio-diverse forests in tropical climates is more significant (and sometimes less properly recorded) than in temperate, well-managed logging forests. 

How Sustainable Is the Manufacturing of Sapele Wood

Turning sapele wood into furniture or musical instruments can have a relatively low carbon footprint when wood waste is utilized to make by-products or biomass pellets to offset the carbon emissions during harvesting and processing. Significant reduction in carbon emissions can also come from using fossil-free energy. 

The first step of manufacturing sapele furniture involves cutting down trees and turning them into lumber in a sawmill. Sawing is an electricity-consuming step. 

The next step is to dry lumber and turn it into furniture. If a piece of lumber can be air-dried to the desired moisture content, no added energy is needed for this step. However, if a kiln is used, it requires extra energy, which could mean higher carbon emissions. 

Sapele dries rapidly, which helps reduce the time (and the energy used) in drying. However, sapele timber has a strong tendency to warp due to the presence of interlocking grain. 

If fossil fuel is used to operate a kiln for drying sapele lumber, it adds to the total carbon emissions. 

A high proportion of energy (to power sawing machines and kilns) can come from renewable sources, including solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, and biomass. 

For example, burning wood waste (biomass) generates energy that could replace fossil fuels. At least 90% of all thermal energy used for kiln drying in the US hardwood sector comes from biomass (instead of fossil fuels). 

How Sustainable Is the Transportation of Sapele Wood

Transporting is a carbon-intensive stage in the life cycle of sapele furniture, flooring, and musical instruments due to the emissions associated with operating the hauling vehicles that take timber to sawmills and factories, then furniture to stores. 

Because sapele trees grow in Africa, sapele timber travels much further to reach customers in the US than domestic hardwoods like maple or black cherry. 

The actual emission during the transporting stage depends on the type of vehicles used, the fuel they need, and the distance the wood travels. Calculations made by the Norwegian Forest and Landscape Institute showed that smaller wood hauling trucks emitted more CO₂ per transported cubic meters of timber: 1.25 times more than larger wood hauling trucks, 1.3 times more than sea vessels, and six times more than freight trains. Therefore, the sustainable transportation option would be rail or large trucks running on biofuel. You can check with your wood suppliers how their products are transported to and within the US and opt for the more sustainable option. 

How Sustainable Is the Usage of Sapele Wood

Using sapele furniture and musical instruments can be sustainable thanks to the carbon capture during the products’ long life. 

Sapele is a strong hardwood with a high Janke hardness (1,510 lbs). It is harder than most domestic North American species and almost twice as hard as genuine mahogany. Regarding density, sapele timber is comparable to red oak. 

Furniture made with sapele can last years or decades, providing proper care. Sapele is also a durable tonewood, ideal for musical instruments. 

When sapele wood is decayed, either naturally in the forest or because of damage caused by usage at home, the carbon stored in the wood is released back to the atmosphere. Therefore, long-lasting furniture can be considered a good way of keeping carbon out of the atmosphere. If the wood is then reclaimed for making another piece of furniture, its positive carbon storage environmental impact is even higher. 

How Sustainable Is the End-of-Life of Sapele Wood

The end-of-life stage for sapele furniture and musical instruments is sustainable when the wood is reused or burned as bioenergy. 

There are a few scenarios for sapele wood products – furniture or musical instruments – at the end of their life: 

1. They can end up in landfills and don’t decompose. In this case, it keeps its role as carbon storage.
   
2. Wood products can also be upcycled and reused, extending their role as carbon storage and reducing the fossil CO₂ emitted as much as four times when comparing, for example, a recovered hardwood flooring with a new one. New wood products often travel much further to their markets, compared with recovered wood products. The latter is typically made in urban centers and sold locally, which lowers the transportation environmental burdens.
   
3. In another end-of-life scenario, products like a garden chair can be burned for biomass energy displacing coal or natural gas in generating electricity.
   
   With smaller household items, such as the sides of a guitar, the offset won’t be as high as there is much less waste for burning. However, if such products are made from manufacturing wood waste as by-products, their carbon footprint is minimal. 

How Can You Buy Sapele Wood More Sustainably

The key to sustainably buying any wood is to check on relevant environmental and original certifications. Reliable certifications for sustainable woods are: 

• Forest Stewardship Council: 

An FSC certification ensures that the sapele wood comes from responsibly managed forests that provide environmental, social, and economic benefits.

• Program for Endorsement of Forest Certification: 

PEFC’s approaches to sustainable forest management are in line with protecting the forests globally and locally and making the certificate work for everyone. Getting a PEFC certification is strict enough to ensure the sustainable management of a forest is socially just, ecologically sound, and economically viable but attainable not only by big but small forest owners. 

Why Is It Important to Buy More Sustainable Wood

Buying sustainable wood also means helping to prevent illegal or unsustainable logging, which harms the forests’ biosystems and accelerates climate change. 

Logging of forestry products from plantations accounts for 26% of forest loss. Cutting down trees for wood has a lesser impact on carbon storage than digging up the whole forest floor and turning it into farms or mines. However, if logging is not sustainably managed, it can badly damage wildlife.

When logging happens in tropical forests – the bio hotspots of our planet – the biodiversity loss can be much more damaging. Subtropical and tropical forests are packed with unique wildlife – endemic mammals, birds, and amphibians. The displacement of such wildlife during poorly managed logging would be a major contributor to global biodiversity loss. 

Sustainable management of forests also means that trees are cut down for timber only when they are mature. These trees will then be able to regrow and eventually replace the loss of canopy, absorb carbon from the atmosphere and reduce the effect of climate change. 

Final Thoughts

You can buy sustainable furniture, flooring, and musical instruments made with sapele wood as long as the material comes from sustainably managed forests. And, to make it even more sustainable, use any piece of sapele furniture or musical instrument for as long as you can, upcycle the material to extend its usage, and arrange for it to be recycled fully. 

Stay impactful,

Sources

• Science Direct: Life-cycle assessment (LCA)
• MIT SMR: Strategic Sustainability Uses of Life-Cycle Analysis
• European Environment Agency: cradle-to-grave
• Science Direct: Cradle-to-Gate Assessment
• Impacful Ninja: 10 Most Sustainable Woods for Guitars? A Life-Cycle Analysis
• THE WOOD DATABASE: SAPELE
• Plants For A Future: Entandrophragma cylindricum – (Sprague) Sprague
• Encyclopedia of Life: Sapele
• THE CONVERSATION: Africa’s rainforests are different. Why it matters that they’re protected
• ICUN RED LIST
• Our World in Data: Deforestation and Forest Loss
• Impactful Ninja: What Is the Carbon Footprint of Solar Energy? A Life-Cycle Assessment
• Impactful Ninja: What Is the Carbon Footprint of Wind Energy? A Life-Cycle Assessment
• Impactful Ninja: What Is the Carbon Footprint of Hydropower Energy? A Life-Cycle Assessment
• Impactful Ninja: What Is the Carbon Footprint of Geothermal Energy? A Life-Cycle Assessment
• Impactful Ninja: What Is the Carbon Footprint of Biomass Energy? A Life-Cycle Assessment
• American Hardwood: ENVIRONMENTAL LIFE -CYCLE ASSESSMENT 
• Impactful Ninja: How Sustainable Is Maple Wood? Here Are the Facts
• Impactful Ninja: How Sustainable Is Black Cherry Wood? Here Are the Facts
• Science Norway: Larger logging trucks give less CO₂ emissions
• THE WOOD DATABASE: JANKA HARDNESS
• Impactful Ninja: How Sustainable Is Mahogany Wood? Here Are the Facts
• Impactful Ninja: How Sustainable Is Red Oak Wood? Here Are the Facts
• Research Gate: Life cycle primary energy and carbon analysis of recovering softwood 
• Impacful Ninja: 10 Most Sustainable Tonewoods? A Life-Cycle Analysis
• Forest Stewardship Council
• Program for Endorsement of Forest Certification
• Our World in Data: Epidemic Mammal Species