Our furniture is generally made of wood, metal and textiles. Wood is the key material as it captures carbon for its entire life span and locks it in the product itself. Upholstery pieces are made in our Norfolk factory, which we bought when the owners retired.
We sell a lot in the UK, so shipping is kept down. Another advantage is that we work closely with mostly UK-based designers who visit the factory often when items are in development. We are not of a scale where we can own all of our manufacturing base, so outsourcing the making of our wood designs to factories in Europe in the early s was a natural step.
There are also no factories of this kind in the UK that can make things at the cost we require — we try to make sustainable products that are not prohibitively priced. In terms of sustainability, we are on a journey. I saw great potential for this mundane material that was transformed when combined with others such as marble, brass and concrete.
People are more engaged with what materials are used in manufacturing, and are excited to hear there may be benefits beyond aesthetics and function.
We have to rethink everything we thought we knew about making. But we need to go back further and challenge our takeaway, convenience-driven culture to stop the need for these pollutants in the first place. Our latest collection, made from Hinoki cypress above , was inspired by a trip to Japan last year, where I visited many craftspeople in their workshops. Despite not speaking the same language, we came away with an agreement that we were going to work together.
Collaborations like this give them new breath to live on. These techniques are not about mass production, but about taking the time and care to make things that will last. Our approach encompasses the entire life cycle of our products; from conception to production, distribution, use — and re-use!
All the materials we use for our products are recyclable most of them are already recycled. We have gone through a very thorough sourcing phase and have a database of roughly materials. This is a must if we want everything to be recyclable. Whenever you need to maintain it, or at the very end of its life, you can quickly and easily separate the materials. We were careful to keep this question in mind when we created EcoBirdy.
Our debut collection is the result of two years of intense research about plastic, plastic toys and how to recycle them into furniture. The toy industry is among those using plastic most intensively. For example, bio-plastics are not always biodegradable in the normal environment. Without an accurate sorting and waste management system, they will mostly end up in waste incineration.
Executive Orders, including 's E. New GSA buildings and major renovations must meet requirements including: reducing fossil-fuel-generated energy consumption by 65 percent by and by percent by managing water from 95th percentile rain events onsite and applying sustainable design principles to siting, design, and construction. It directs federal agencies to manage their buildings, vehicles, and overall operations to optimize energy and environmental performance, reduce waste, and cut costs.
It calls for agencies to cost-effectively meet goals including:. The result is a solid balance of cost, environmental, societal, and human benefits that help meet tenant agencies' mission objectives and functional needs. GSA strives to seamlessly integrate sustainable design into project delivery. GSA uses the U. Sustainability Matters is the first comprehensive overview by a federal agency related to the issues of building, operating and maintaining facilities sustainably.
The Sustainable Facilities Tool is a one-stop online resource to support decision-making regarding sustainable building principles, materials and systems.
Targeted to help project personnel identify and prioritize cost-effective, sustainable strategies for small projects, the Sustainable Facilities Tool helps users understand and select environmentally preferable solutions for renovations, alterations and leases. The shortcut to this page is www. Please try again later. No results could be found for the location you've entered. Not quite, but they are closely related terms.
Other similar, related terms include green , organic , natural , clean , and ethical. One key component of sustainable design is standardization. This can mean the same parts across every product in your line or using the same parts other manufacturers are using— even your competitors. By using standard parts, consumers can find replacement parts more easily and do their own repairs, rather than having to find specialized repair techs or replace their items altogether.
Problem is, you have an iPhone and everybody else has another kind of smartphone—among the group, somebody has a Motorola, somebody else has a Samsung, another friend has an LG.
They can all share chargers because these manufacturers built the same USB charging port into their phones. But as part of their proprietary design, Apple gave the iPhone a differently shaped charging port and that means you need an Apple phone charger. Implementing sustainable design principles and strategies in your work comes with a lot of benefits that reach beyond doing right by the planet. Here are a few of the biggest benefits that come with this choice:.
This means using less energy overall—and that extends to working with vendors that use sustainable power and manufacturing sources. But website designers can opt for sustainable design by choosing to work with hosting providers that utilize energy-saving strategies and renewable resources, like Green Geeks or Dream Host.
In non-digital scenarios, using less energy often means designing a motor or mechanism that literally uses less power than other designs. Depending on your audience, advertising it loud and clear can give you a huge head start over your competition… or it might not matter.
Even if your audience is apathetic to sustainability or even critical of it, incorporating sustainable design principles into your work can help you avoid facing fees and fines associated with not complying to environmental regulations.
In many places, governments offer tax incentives, grants and subsidies to companies that design and manufacture their products in sustainable ways. Research whether your state or federal government offers similar incentives and if so, how you can take advantage of them. You might find that sustainable design pays—literally! You can also claim certain tax deductions by choosing electric vehicles for your company fleet and purchasing renewable energy-producing equipment for your office.
Keep in mind that sustainable design can have drawbacks as well. Many designers and businesses find themselves facing higher material costs when they try to implement sustainable design strategies. Sustainable materials are often recycled or sourced in sustainable ways, which typically means more specialized equipment, sourcing from different regions than non-sustainable versions of the same materials are sourced from, sourcing less of the materials and packing and shipping them differently.
These higher costs are often passed on to the consumer, which then mean they have to be passed on to the next consumer: your client. You can partner with other designers, businesses or manufacturers to share material costs.
You can also look for places to save money elsewhere, like shortening your supply chain with the added bonus of reducing emissions! Other strategies include investing in other sustainable companies to generate an additional income stream, seeking public and private grants to cover costs and connecting with investors who have the same goals you have. People care a lot about sustainability, especially as climate change becomes an even hotter topic.
In a perfect world, you can choose to only work with other companies whose commitment to sustainability mirrors yours. A commitment to sustainable design can also mean having to critically think about what makes the most sense for your company. Case in point: cryptocurrency. So that leaves you with the difficult decision of working out where your company stands on this.
Although switching to sustainable design can sound daunting, working with sustainable design principles can actually be pretty easy. You might even be using these strategies already:. As we mentioned above, using standardized components in your designs makes it easy for the end consumer to replace parts and repair the object, extending its life. You can also think about ways your product can be reused in the future.
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