Europe’s utilities face rising environmental and regulatory pressures, especially changes to rules on creosote use for timber poles. These shifts create an opportunity to rethink how wooden infrastructure is protected, highlighting the need for longer-lasting, more sustainable, and future-ready network assets.
SUSTAINABLE, LONG-LIFE UTILITY POLES IN A POST-CREOSOTE ERA
As EU REACH and UK HSE regulations move toward significantly restricting creosote use in industrial applications, utilities face a once-in-a-generation shift.
Our new white paper Building Resilient Networks: Protecting Wooden Infrastructure for a Net-Zero Future explores how operators can safeguard network performance while meeting evolving environmental and compliance expectations.
WHY UTILITIES NEED TO PREPARE FOR A POST-CREOSOTE LANDSCAPE
Creosote has been the backbone of timber pole preservation for decades, but its future in Europe and the UK is under increasing pressure. As detailed in the report, EU REACH and UK HSE guidance are accelerating the phase-out of creosote for most industrial uses, forcing utilities to reassess how they protect their pole assets.
The coming regulatory changes present an opportunity to adopt cleaner, long-life protection systems aligned with ESG, circular economy, and net-zero strategies. This white paper shows you how.
WHO SHOULD READ THIS WHITE PAPER?
This resource is designed for utility asset managers, network engineers and planners, sustainability & ESG teams, procurement teams, environmental compliance officers, and consultants & infrastructure engineers.
WHAT THE WHITE PAPER COVERS
The Changing Regulatory Landscape
A clear explanation of how EU and UK regulations will reshape preservatives, material choices, and long-term network planning.
Resilience in a Net-Zero Era
Why protecting wooden poles is essential to reducing Scope 3 emissions, embodied carbon, and material waste.
Field Data & Case Studies
Independent trials - including 25- year BRE studies and large-scale deployments in Finland, Canada, and Uganda - validate long-term performance.
Economic & Operational Benefits
Life-cycle cost reductions, improved reliability, and alignment with ISO 55000 and asset-management best practice.
Polesaver manufactures and supplies guaranteed products that are proven to maximise utility pole lifespan. With millions of Rot-Guard™ sleeves supplied to date, our patented ground-line barrier sleeves have been proven in volume use since 1994.
*Polesaver uses long term independent test data on the effectiveness of barrier sleeves and fire protection fabric to reach all the conclusions given on this website (test data available on request). Based on this data, Polesaver believes longer life, maintenance of strength over time, improved safety and reliability, extended inspection periods and reduced maintenance requirements are reasonable claims. This is subject to Polesaver products being correctly applied as per our instructions and used on correctly preservative treated (for long term in-ground use - Use Class 4 or higher) wooden utility poles that are free of decay at the time of sleeve application. The claims made, real or implied are not warranties. It is the responsibility of the user to evaluate and satisfy themselves that the performance of the product meets their specific safety, reliability, extended inspection, repair and any other performance or cost-benefit criteria before using Polesaver sleeves or fire protection fabric.
