Is this Canberra’s most relentlessly green business?

Posted on 19 October, 2022

Thor’s Hammer has been working for a more sustainable city since it began salvaging and recycling timber nearly 30 years ago.

But its commitment to sustainability goes far beyond simply repurposing old wood to make new floors and furniture.

Owner Thor Diesendorf is keen to adopt sustainable practices at every step of the manufacturing process at his custom-built factory in Fyshwick. One might even say he’s a little obsessed by his mission to reduce the company’s carbon footprint.

So he has done everything from installing solar panels all over the roof, swapping to electric forklifts, installing a solar-powered kiln, recycling sawdust to create his hugely popular and efficient fire briquettes, and throwing his trusty mutt Ziggy onto his electric cargo bike for the daily ride to work from Lyneham.

“It’s not just me who supports this way of doing things, we have a team of about 35 people now and the whole team is really committed,” he says from the company’s upstairs showroom which also features a gallery of local artists amidst the bespoke chairs, tables and beds he and his carpenters make.

More broadly, Thor says the company’s adoption of green technology has been a sound investment while also meeting goals along the ACT’s Government’s pathway to electrification.

It may look crowded on the roof but Thor has plans to place some more PV cells up there. Photo by Pew Pew Studio

By next year, Thor hopes to quantify the business’ energy use in order to go carbon neutral, and an electric delivery van is also in the works.

He says there have been a huge number of benefits to the process beyond simply reducing fossil fuel use. For instance, his two electric multi-directional forklifts are not only more agile than the conventional petrol-powered models, but their clean power means the workshop is free from the exhaust fumes that were created every time something needed to be loaded and lifted.

“They are expensive to buy but so much better to use, because when you think about it, when a combustion engine forklift is not moving, it’s idling, and creating fumes, but with an electric forklift, if you stop, you don’t use any power at all, and a lot of the time they are stopped.”

For nearly 30 years, Thor’s Hammer has been recycling and repurposing old timber from building sites. Photo by Pew Pew Studio

The forklifts also go through an extra big charging cycle on the weekends, using the excess solar power available when the workshop isn’t operating.

Again, it is not a cheap process to convert to solar energy, but Thor said it figured very early in his financial analysis of the business.

“I think the problem is you have to get access to more investment because it costs more upfront to put these measures in place in order to save money further down the track. So for us as a business it’s always a question of how much access to finance we can get. And we are always pushing the limits.”

But one investment he has been particularly grateful for in recent months is his solar kiln, given the amount of rain the city has had over the past year, which means recycled timber is usually fairly damp when it arrives.

Another good environmental practice which converts to a financial benefit is the company’s creation of fire briquettes which sell like hotcakes.

“We collect all the sawdust and put it through a machine that uses pressure to activate the lignin in the timber which glue these little briquettes together. But just make sure you don’t leave them out in the rain because they fall apart, creating a really big pile of sawdust!”

The recycled sawdust fire briquettes are a huge sellar and burn more efficiently than wood (not to mention stacking more easily). Photo by Pew Pew Studio

Customers love them for many reasons—they burn efficiently because they contain less moisture than wood, they stack perfectly because they are rectangular, and—hey!—no splinters while making a fire.

There really is no part of Thor’s manufacturing process which skimps on sustainable practices, including the use of natural finishes on floors and furniture.

“We use plant oil-based finishes, so they’re fossil fuel and fossil oil-free as well. It’s the same with the resin filler that we use. We use one that’s a biocarbon-based resin filler which is about 30 per cent bio based, which is about the best you can get at the moment.”

The team has now reached 35 employees, all keen to uphold the company’s sustainability practices. Photo by Pew Pew Studio

And at the end of the financial year, when every effort has been made to incorporate green principles into creating sustainable products, Thor’s Hammer goes that little step further—donating 10 per cent of its annual profits to a selection of charities including Beyond Zero Emissions, The Climate Factory, Farmers for Climate Action, Firesticks Alliance Indigenous Corporation, and Greening Australia.

Such a strong commitment to the environment has helped build loyalty and enthusiasm for the Thor’s Hammer brand, which boasts devoted and return customers the city over. It is also a factor fuelling the company’s huge growth since it started 28 years ago when Thor started earning money while scouring building sites for material to make custom kitchens and furniture.

“We have a great team, committed to principles of craftsmanship and to what we do for the environment. My hope is to keep growing and displacing the other manufacturers who make furniture out of new timber. There’s always more we can do.”