Cork Natural Properties

Cork comes from the bark of the cork oak tree. It is a renewable and sustainable resource, making it ideal in terms of the ever increasing demand for conservation of natural resources.

In cork oak plantations the first cork bark will not be harvested from a tree until it is 25-30 years old, as only then it is considered a fully grown tree. The process of stripping off the bark in sections is a traditionally manual one dating back many hundreds of years.

The tree is not damaged and the bark regrows completely, taking on a smoother texture after each harvest. Harvesting only occurs once every nine years and a cork oak can live for 150-200 years, so it can be safely harvested up to 20 times during its life cycle. It is a truly inexhaustible and natural resource.

There isn't a man-made material that can match cork, nor is one ever likely to take its place. Cork's structure is very similar to that of a honeycomb: each square centimetre is composed of 40 million cells. These cells, as well as the spaces between them, are filled with a gaseous mixture similar to air.

That is what makes cork so remarkable. The unique structure and composition of cork creates the three most important characteristics in its application as flooring.