I couldn't comment on the biological aspect, to be honest. What I can say is that cork bark, compared to other trees, grows extremely thick, porous, wet and fle

I couldn't comment on the biological aspect, to be honest. What I can say is that cork bark, compared to other trees, grows extremely thick, porous, wet and flexible. I've never seen anything like this process done to another tree species. It's also worth it to say that young trees need to be de-corked once (when they're around 20 years old) before they'll produce useable cork. It grows much smoother after this first peel, which looks a lot more like normal bark (just much thicker). The world is swinging back to natural materials, for better or worse. I'm biased of course but in this case I'm a fan purely because the physical properties are so good and there's so much space to make it more economical to consumers.