The "Sustainability" Problem
"Sustainability" is an idea that most conscious people care about, and for which most ambitious companies are sure to make some statement of support. We all want to make a positive difference but don't we all feel the fatigue of confusing marketing messaging around sustainability?
Greenwashing is more nuanced nowadays, but the primary purpose is still to convince you to make a buying decision based on the premise that you are doing good by the environment. But does that "premise" really matter?
The problem is that there is no financial motivation to provide clarity on the topic of sustainability, but rather to promote some detail of a product that "checks the box".
A great example of this is in the disconnect between what is "recyclable" and what actually gets recycled. In our view, the blame lies with the company that chooses to use a material that is very unlikely to ever get recycled, while simultaneously taking credit for the fact that it is theoretically recyclable. Examples of this abound!
A Common Sense Approach
This is our no-statistics, no-charts/graphs position on the "sustainability" question:
Build with renewables
Make easily repairable
Design to last 100+ years
Build with Renewables
Turning fast-growing plants/trees into long-lasting, durable goods is one of the best strategies for removing CO2 from the atmosphere! As these plants re-grow, they are like CO2 sponges during the early growth phase. By contrast, one could say that steel and glass are abundant natural resources, BUT producing them requires heating to 2700-deg temperatures using lots of fossil fuels, which adds sutstantially to the CO2 problem!
Make Easily Repairable
Sadly, almost everything in our society now is considered "disposable", with "fast furniture" leading the way with massive landfill waste after just 5-10 years in service. This is a disgraceful modern phenomenon born out of the desire to maximize profits using the lowest cost materials that ensure you'll be purchasing again when the item falls apart in a few short years!
Products built in this manner feel good to purchase and may look good at first, but we soon find out that they are very fragile and impossible to repair to any reasonable satisfaction.
We do NOT use any particle board or MDF in our products, but rather solid plywood materials that can be sanded and/or re-finished many times into the future. Nobody wants dinged up furniture, so to keep it out of the landfill, it is crucial that you can make it look brand-new again easily and inexpensively. We design for this.
Design to last 100+ years
This may sound like a somewhat ridculous goal, but we take it seriously! Prior to the last few decades, furniture was designed to last for hundreds of years, as much of the antiques you see around has! This old furniture, because of its "good bones" gets 2nd, 3rd, 4th lives! We aim to be the furniture that no-one would dare throw away! The benefit to the planet is tremendous. Carbon that is sequestered for a hundred years in usable products buys us the time we need to solve the climate issue. Pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere, storing it in long lasting furniture, and replacing with fast growing, carbon absorbing trees is our contribution to the climate solution.
We welcome any feedback or commentary on our thought process. We don't claim to have any "silver bullet" answer to the climate (or any environmental) issue, but we do believe that our approach actually moves the needle in a rational way. All companies making sustainability claims need to focus less on what could theoretically happen "IF" a poorly constructed product is recycled after a few years and more on building it to last so that for at least 100 years it doesn't need to be recycled at all!