News

Analysis June 2020: Secondary research

By 2020-05-21T15:30:00

Analysis

Musicians are becoming increasingly aware of the environmental cost of cutting down ebony and maple, even as stocks of top-quality wood are dwindling. What are the alternatives?

The increasing pressures on some of the natural resources used in the musical instrument industry, such as ebony and maple, are leading some manufacturers to champion responsibly sourced materials and introduce new product lines that aim to appeal to players’ environmental concerns. These manufacturers, frustrated by seeing so many trees felled and then discarded because they don’t fit established criteria for the ‘perfect’ tree, are adapting their selection processes to work more sensitively with what forests have to offer. The hope is that the market will adapt to embrace wood products that clearly demonstrate responsible sourcing.

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