Cambium, a Baltimore County startup that transforms old trees into furniture and construction materials, has acquired an arborist company to expand its supply of timber.
The acquisition of Forward Forestry will double Cambium’s production capacity for its flagship product, Carbon Smart Wood. Cambium’s wood composite uses trees that would normally end up rotting away in a landfill to build furniture or building materials. Large companies like Patagonia and National Geographic have used the product.
Cambium CEO Ben Christensen said the acquisition will help Cambium expand by creating a more stable supply chain where it can control the logistics of everything from processing wood from when it is cut down to the manufacturing of new wood products.
Forward Forestry is a New Hampshire technology company with a similar ethos to Cambium. Both firms are focused on reducing waste in the lumber industry. Forward Forestry helps arborists package wood that would normally be thrown away so it can be used by lumber mills. Cambium believes its production capacity will expand from three million board feet to six million within a year of the acquisition by expanding its supply chain.
“They allow us to expand our platform into a part of the industry that we have not expanded into,” Christensen said. “Being able to help arborists directly connect their logs to a place that will reuse them instead of disposing them is transformative.”
The three-founder executive team of Forward Forestry will join Cambium. Financial terms of the deal, which was announced last week, were not disclosed.
The acquisition will integrate 81 arborists into Cambium’s supply chain. Forward Forestry specializes in ensuring that wood is packaged so it is easy for sawmills to process. Most sawmills are used to dealing with loggers who can deliver truckloads of homogenous logs, not the more varied wood sizes from fallen trees that arborists typically have.
“The more sourcing partners that you have, the better,” Christensen said.
Cambium already works with arborists and municipal governments to help process trees but did not have a specific technology application to manage interactions with arborists until this acquisition. The company’s Traece software focuses on helping manufacturing companies in the wood industry keep track of inventory, not the acquisition of raw wood.
Cambium has a two-pronged approach to business growth. The company manufactures its own products but also offers software like Traece to outside firms in the wood space.
"We're trying to transform the lumber industry to one that has technology and one that sources much more sustainably," Christensen said. "So that we can credibly say we know where every log came from."
The next growth area for the company is to supply an expanding market for transforming wood into mass timber, Christensen said. Mass timber buildings are made up of large compressed masses of wood that are flame resistant and require less greenhouse gases to produce compared to steel or concrete.
The material is popular in Europe but is starting to gain a foothold in the United States as an environmentally friendly construction material. For example, Under Armour Inc.'s new headquarters being built at Baltimore Peninsula will be made of mass timber.
