Duratex: compromise with Jundiaí

Founded 60 years ago, Duratex is, today, the biggest industrialized wood panel industry and sanitary metals of the South Hemisphere, with strong presence in the sanitary ware. Since its origins, its story is strongly connected to the city of Jundiaí: the town received the company’s first line of production, in 1954.

“We have a work story with the town of Jundiaí”, emphasizes the Duratex’s CEO, Henri Penchas, emphasizing that, today, the town has three Duratex’s manufacturing unities, two of them producing ceramics and the other one sanitary metals, and together, they provide more than 2 thousand direct jobs to the town’s inhabitants.

Mixing businesses and strong brands, such as Durafloor, Deca and Hydra, Duratex is a Brazilian private company, with open capital, with its control shared by Grupos Itaúsa – Investimentos Itaú S.A. and Companhia Ligna de Investimentos. Since 2008, Duratex is part of the portfolio of the Corporate Sustainability Index (ISE, in the Portuguese acronym), of BM&FBOVESPA (São Paulo’s Stock Exchange), comprised by shares of companies with recognized compromise with social responsibility and corporate sustainability.

Duratex commercializes its products throughout Brazil and in around 40 countries. It has 14 industrial unities located in the States of Minas Gerais,

Paraíba, Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul and São Paulo, besides one in Argentina. The annual production capacity of the Deca Division is of 9.8 million of sanitary ware and 17 million of metals. In the Wood Division, there are 3.9 million of square meters of products in MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard), MDP (Medium Density Particleboard) and fiber sheets.

Integrated to the industrial complexes, the company has 224 thousand hectares, 168 thousand of them of cultivated forests in São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul. Around 52 trees are planted every minute. It is important to emphasize that Duratex was the first company in Latin America to obtain the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Certification, in 1995.

Today, the company is a neutral issuer of carbon, and it is listed in the Chicago Climate Exchange – CCX.

With state-of-the-art handling techniques, Duratex develops several programs on biodiversity of its forests, along with research institutions. The company preserves the native forests and tries to reduce the emission of gases and energy consume. It also follows up the treatment of effluents, the reuse of materials and the correct destination of residues.

Duratex’s role as leader is to be a reference and influence, through its good examples. “Our challenge is to improve the sustainability principles in our activities, aiming to aggregate value and maintain the eternity of the business”, concludes Penchas.