Five Furniture Companies That Are Easy On The Environment

Source: Architectual Digest, Audrey Gray
Photo: Sofa by Sabai (Ben Hartschuh)

Get to know the furniture companies proving that sustainable can also be chic

Let’s get real about the word sustainable, as it’s used in a million ways for a million reasons—many of them an attempt to sell something. In the context of furniture companies, we might think about it like this: If we were to keep making, shipping, using, and disposing of our furnishings just the way we do now, how would the world end up? Would we force the permanent elimination of forests? Would workers at a plastic factory become ill? Would people with new sofas get sick from inhaling fumes off-gassed by the chemical stain guard on the cushions? How much globe-heating carbon would be released every day by the shipping and trucking of giant, heavy boxes around the planet? How much room would be left in the landfill your municipality is using right now?

Answers to many of those questions are troubling. In the U.S. alone, for instance, more than 12 million pounds of furnishings are thrown out every year, and 80 percent of that ends up in landfills, according to the EPA.

But this is not a season—or a year, for that matter—to pile on troubles, especially when solutions are already available. Ambitious teams of furniture designers have grappled with the barriers to more sustainable industry practices and are emerging with products that offer some relief to the environment. They are inventing new ways of manufacturing, often local, using all sorts of recycled or reclaimed materials. And they are dead set on not overstocking product or shipping it out in a boatload of Styrofoam.

All that’s required of potential buyers is a more careful approach to purchases. (This cheat sheet from the Sustainable Furnishings Council is helpful.) Many designers keep a list of sustainable furniture companies who can provide key pieces for eco-conscious customers at a variety of price points. Here’s a short list of companies AD PRO is watching this year to help accentuate yours.

Model No.

You might think of 3D printers as being smaller than a desktop, but the architect founders of Model No. “print” out their mod, spacey designs layer by layer with machines 10 times that size. Six-foot-high 3D printers create ergonomic chaise lounges and tables (many with secret storage capacity) from bio-resins, types of plastic made from food waste instead of petroleum products. Cofounder Jillian Northrup says Model No. saves on warehouse space and waste by only fabricating pieces after they are ordered online. “Our big idea is designer customizable furniture that is sustainable. When you order it, you get it in two to three weeks,” she says.

Thuma

Just as maple trees are tapped for syrup in North America, rubber trees are tapped for latex (which is later refined into rubber) in tropical climates. For years, those trees were scrapped or burned at the end of their latex-producing life cycles, but now, creative manufacturers like San Francisco–based Thuma have reclaimed rubber wood for more enduring and less carbon-emitting purposes, like cradling your body every night. The Bed, Thuma’s debut product, is designed with classic lines in hopes that customers will hold on to it for years longer. Thuma has made some impressive advances in their shipping practices too, using recycled cardboard products to cushion the wooden bed frames during delivery.

Sabai

Hauling broken or stained sofas to the curb is an American habit that starts young, often because first-time furniture buyers can afford only flimsy, low-end pieces. Sabai founders Caitlin Ellen and Phantila Phataraprasit, both in their 20s, set out a couple years ago to create something they needed themselves: a less pricey, greener alternative to mass-produced sofas. “We always cared about sustainability in terms of how we eat and travel,” says Phataraprasit. “But it was difficult when it came time to decorate our apartments.” Their solution, which they are iterating to this day, is an “essential sofa” and “essential sectional.” Their most popular fabric is velvet made from recycled water bottles, which is easy to clean and requires no chemical treatment. The sofas are manufactured domestically in North Carolina, saving on trans-ocean shipping costs and emissions as well.

Loll Designs

Minnesota-based CEO Greg Benson credits a high school environmental studies teacher with changing his worldview early on. Benson remembers those classes as “a significant awakening for me to really look at nature and how we interact with it” long before anyone was using catchphrases like sustainable business. Benson’s early ventures included designing skate parks, but he pivoted to furniture more than a decade ago, determined to find compelling uses for recycled plastic. Loll Designs—the name inspired by a chill “lollygagger” vibe—is introducing some poppy indoor-outdoor lounge pieces this year, all manufactured locally. The company was recently C2C (Cradle to Cradle) certified, which means their sustainability practices start at sourcing and take all aspects of each product’s life cycle into consideration.

Munson Furniture

An eco-conscious option for high-end customers, Oakland-based Munson Furniture launched its custom manufacturing project online two years ago. Designer Paul Munson applied midcentury Danish modern aesthetics to his own logic, believing that if he got the dimensions of his tables just right, customers could fashion thousands of iterations by choosing different configurations and materials. Munson prioritizes fine-quality woods, as interested in the look and “grain structure” of them as he is in their natural habitat. The company partners with distributors approved by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), an independent organization that guarantees wood is coming from forests that are managed to keep them thriving for decades to come. Recently, Munson starting thoughtfully working with a highly endangered wood. Pale, ghostly beautiful ash trees are now threatened by an invasive beetle named for its destructive power, the emerald ash borer. Since municipalities in the Midwest will sometimes preemptively cut down healthy ash trees, hoping to quarantine the beetle to infected areas only, Munson has arranged to reclaim those felled trees and turn them into lasting pieces, limited-edition monuments to nature’s precarious balance.

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/five-furniture-companies-that-are-easy-on-the-environment