Where Our Materials Come From and Why It Matters

73% of an ARKA Silent pods is wood — and every gram of it is traceable, and chosen for a reason.

What Is FSC certification and why does It belong in your procurement conversation?

FSC certification is an independent audit. It confirms that the forest the timber came from is managed within regeneration limits, without displacing indigenous communities, and with a documented chain of custody from tree to sheet. For a procurement team evaluating a sustainable office pod against WELL or LEED criteria, FSC is the minimum credible evidence that a wood-based product belongs in your building.

It is also a filter — one that many office furniture manufacturers do not pass. The FSC label on our Baltic birch was a sourcing constraint set before the first panel was designed, not a decision made afterward to support our marketing. Our aim is to build products from honest and familiar materials.

The specifics of wood inside every ARKA office pod

An ARKA Solo intended for single person weighs 360kg. Of that, 260kg is wood-based material — 73% of total mass. That is a deliberate structural and material choice aimed at creating a truly sustainable product.

Baltic birch plywood: 150kg / 42% of total weight

We use 12mm and 15mm sheets throughout. Baltic birch is dense, dimensionally stable, and available in FSC-certified form from mills in the Gauja River valley region of Latvia, near where we build. Birch ply is the foundation for every ARKA booth. It has superior longevity and structural integrity compared to MDF or cheaper chipboards. Plywood is much better at resisting heat/cold cycling and moisture damage. Additionally it allows our products to be re-assembled multiple times without any damage to technical joints.

The plywood manufacturer bonds layers using lignin-based glue derived from wood itself — no formaldehyde-based adhesives, no urea-formaldehyde, no phenol-formaldehyde. The air inside an ARKA pod is chemically different from the air inside a pod built with standard MDF or chipboard. That difference is noticeable and important to user well-being.

Laminated pine frame: 60kg / 17% of total weight

The structural frame is laminated pine. It is dimensionally stable under load, lighter than solid hardwood alternatives, and FSC certified. Laminated pine holds a joint differently from solid timber — the adhesive lines distribute stress across the section rather than concentrating it along the grain — which is why it performs well as a frame material under repeated assembly and disassembly.

Wood pulp board and wood pulp insulation: 25kg + 25kg / 14% combined

The insulation layer is 50mm thick, made from natural wood pulp. This is not the spray foam or mineral wool found in most pods. Wood pulp insulation is hygroscopic — it moves moisture through rather than trapping it — and it keeps the interior formaldehyde-free without trading away acoustic or thermal performance.

Office furniture is built around minimizing cost. We choose to build around what the person inside will breathe for eight hours a day.

Why formaldehyde-free construction matters

Formaldehyde off-gassing from adhesives in wood composites is well-documented. IARC classifies it as a Group 1 carcinogen. New furniture and new enclosures typically off-gas at higher rates, declining over months or years depending on temperature and ventilation.

A pod is a quiet space. Quiet means limited air exchange by design. In an enclosed pod, the concentration of any off-gassed compound is higher than in open plan — that was one of the design constraints we started with. ARKA uses PVA adhesive in manufacturing. The plywood manufacturer uses lignin-based glue. The one structural adhesive exception is 0.2kg of PU adhesive bonding glass to hinges only. Total plastics content across the entire pod is 0.1kg. If you are procuring eco-friendly work pods for a WELL-certified environment, these are the numbers that matter.

How Recycled Wool and Cotton Affect the Air and the Sound

8kg of recycled wool lines the interior at 2mm thickness. Recycled cotton adds a further acoustic layer at 5mm. Together with the wood pulp insulation, ply and the timber structure, these form a 5-layer noise absorption system achieving 33dB of sound reduction under ISO testing — independently verified, not modelled.

Wool absorbs mid-frequency sound, which is the range that carries human voice. It does this without the hard reflection produced by smooth panel surfaces. Foam does not behave this way — the acoustic softness of wool at mid-frequency is a material property. Wool also regulates humidity at a small scale, which is relevant in an enclosed working space.

The cotton layer beneath handles a different frequency range. The two materials together cover what a single synthetic acoustic layer cannot.

These materials are listed here because they are doing specific, auditable work — and because recycled fibre sourcing can be verified in the same way FSC timber sourcing can. Acoustic test results are published for those who want to examine the methodology closer.

What European Manufacturing Means for Supply Chain Accountability

ARKA Silent is built in Latvia. Our timber supply chain runs through the Gauja River valley. Our glass is tempered — 55kg / 15% of pod weight — and sourced regionally. The hardware is steel: 15kg / 4%.

Most acoustic pod manufacturers source components across three or four continents and assemble in a fifth. The ESG documentation that follows is correspondingly layered, and the chain of custody correspondingly difficult to confirm. We are not in that position. Our supply chain is short enough to audit honestly.

For procurement teams working against WELL, LEED, or internal ESG reporting requirements, supply chain geography is increasingly a scored criterion. An FSC certified office pod built in Europe by a European manufacturer with a documented regional timber supply is a simpler compliance story than the alternative — and a simpler story is usually a more defensible one.

Assembly, Longevity, and What Happens at End of Life

The ARKA SOLO assembles in one hour. The DUO assembles in two hours. No specialist tools required. This is a material consideration as much as a logistical one — modular assembly without specialist tools means the pod can be disassembled, relocated, and used again when a lease ends or a floor plan changes.

73% of the mass is certified timber and wood fibre. The wool and cotton are already secondary-cycle materials. Plastics content is 0.1kg across 360kg of product. This composition does not create a disposal problem at end of life in the way most office furniture does.

Sustainability as a core value of ARKA products

In order to specify a truly sustainable silent pod, there are some questions worth asking manufacturers / distributors: What adhesives were used in your plywood? What is the formaldehyde content of your insulation? Where is your timber certified to, and by whom? What is your plastics content by weight?

These are not difficult questions to ask. They are the questions a WELL assessor will ask. We can answer all of them, in writing, with documentation.

Configure your pod or request a quote — we can provide the full material data sheet alongside your specification.

The wood inside an ARKA pod comes from certified forests, assembled close to where it grows, bonded without formaldehyde, and built to last long enough that the sourcing question is worth asking in the first place. That is the reason it matters.