Sustainability in the Furniture Business

posted by Kevin

An emerging term heard around the Home Furnishings Community is Sustainability. What does this mean, how is it accomplished, and how is it affecting the look, feel, and price of the finished products? PH Reed has been exploring the policies and procedures with many of our vendors and found a few who best demonstrate sustainability.

We are proud of our long term relationship with Creative Elegance. They are a contemporary furniture manufacturing company based in Southern California. Privately owned and operated for 28 years, they are deeply concerned with creating and keeping jobs in within the community. All aspects of product design, from purchase of raw materials and manufacturing, to delivery and installation they are continually working to insure and maintain high quality standards.

Their clean contemporary designs for the home and office use many old world craftsmanship techniques and details, rich wood veneers, and a mix of solid, and/or manufactured wood framing.  Many of the increased costs of production (at home / not Asia) have been off-set by careful planning for the future, as well as buying and using less, and wasting fewer raw materials.  They are leading the way in lowering their carbon footprint and here are some of the specific areas in which they are excelling.

Conservation is Key

• Most shipping/packaging material is made of recycled wood pulp.
• Wood waste and all regular trash is sorted and recycled every day.  Including bottles, cans and shipping pallets.  Also light bulbs and old computer parts sent to facilities that can re-use or recycle them
• All paint and solvents are recycled and used for fuel.
• High-efficiency lighting reduces wattage and heat output saving on cooling costs.
• Using computer-controlled Energy Star motors during manufacturing cuts down waste of raw material, and energy.

Controlling Pollution from the Factory to the Home

• Low VOC and Formaldehyde Free Finish products improve indoor air quality in the factory and then in the home.  Creative Elegance plans to be Emission Free as soon as possible.  Currently all of their wood products have Low Formaldehyde emissions.  Low enough to be ahead of the California 2012 emissions requirements.  These are the most stringent in the country.
• An excellent dust collection system also keeps all particulate exhaust from the facilities from the outside environment and out of the storm water runoff.  Inside, dust-free zones help keep finishes smooth as well as keeping their employees’ lungs free of wood particulate. 

We at PH Reed look to companies like Creative Elegance for inspiration and use their policies as a guide for out own environmental policies and we look forward to bringing additional environmentally conscience vendors into our store.  When visiting us, please feel free to ask for additional details about Creative Elegance and The Sustainable Furniture Council.  We will be glad to share with you all the information we have.