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Market booming with Eco-Furnishings
Whole industry jumps on the bandwagon, but consumers need more green to go green at stores
You've upgraded the windows, super-insulated the attic, scrapped the old bar fridge. What's next on your green list?
If your bank account is flush, it's eco-furnishings.
The market is booming for everything from banana-fibre carpet to high-end sofas covered in cork fabric. Hardwoods from sustainable forests, organic cotton fibres and water-based glues bask in the spotlight. Petroleum-derived foam, off-gassing stains and synthetic fabrics are passe.
In the United States, Rowe Furniture is just one of many manufacturers to launch new Earth-friendly products. Its Eco-Rowe line includes cushions that blend recycled materials, duck feathers and down on the inside with hemp and other natural fibre fabrics on the outside.
In Vancouver, meanwhile, furniture manufacturer and retailer Upholstery Arts uses lumber certified by the Rainforest Alliance and the Stewardship Council. It also has a "cradle to cradle" policy that rewards customers for returning furniture at the end of its life, thereby reducing landfill.
Upholstery Arts was the featured manufacturer when Ottawa and Toronto retailer DeBoer's Furniture launched its everGreen line last year. Now the stores have added Montreal's G. Romano Inc. and Toronto's Perri Fine Furniture to its eco-supplier list. DeBoer's also carries products from Toronto's Urban Tree Salvage, an outfit that turns some of the countless apple, oak and other trees that are cut down in that city each year into items like dining room tables and desks.
"The whole industry has jumped on the bandwagon," says Suanne de Boer, general manager of DeBoer's.
"In the fall of 2006, we couldn't find much at all. By the spring last year, there were a couple of introductions. By last fall, it was mass market."
Like most retailers and manufacturers on that bandwagon, DeBoer's has a green checklist. Local suppliers, for example, get a tick, thanks to the reduced emissions to transport products from factory to showroom. DeBoer's also scrutinizes suppliers for environmentally sound manufacturing processes.
That clearly suits the manufacturers. Both G. Romano Inc. and Perri Fine Furniture were delighted to work with the retailer to meet its green criteria, says de Boer.
But, you need green to go green. An eco-friendly sofa at DeBoer's will run you a hefty $2,700. Thanks to growing demand and consequent economies of scale, that's down from $5,000 a couple of years ago but still out of many folks' league. As an alternative, de Boer suggests less expensive "hybrid" products where the cushion foam, for example, might be half soy, half petroleum.
Price is an issue for the eco-conscious, agrees Jackie Crawford, owner of Green Rooms home furnishings store in Oakville, Ont. Higher prices are almost inevitable when your suppliers are small operations paying big bucks for raw materials. But, she asks, what about the hidden costs of less expensive furniture? Overseas production may keep the cost of a baby crib low, but lax environmental safeguards and child labour laws in the country of origin may exact other, horrendous costs. For reasons such as these, Green Rooms has what Crawford calls a "broad no-China" policy, although it will make exceptions if it's convinced the manufacturer meets the store's environmental and fair-trade standards.
As well, Crawford says she has to bite the transportation emission bullet when it comes to natural-fibre household textiles like bed linen: India remains the major source of supply.
"When you're trying to make a green consumer choice, you're always weighing up the environmental costs of different things and making a choice that you think is the least damaging," she says.
(Tradeoffs can dog even the most apparently eco-worthy ideas. Some of what Urban Tree Salvage recycles into furniture would have otherwise wound up as firewood, so won't other trees now be axed to meet that demand?)
Crawford also stresses the durability that tends to be the hallmark of eco-furnishings. You might pay $1,800 for a wooden rocking chair at Green Rooms, but your great-grandchildren will likely be able to enjoy it.
That means you have to think not just quality but also design, says Jason Dressler. He's a partner in Toronto's Brothers Dressler, an ecologically conscious wood furnishings manufacturer and a Green Rooms supplier.
The challenge comes in finding raw materials, since sustainably certified wood can be tough to find in the small quantities his company uses. The benefits, though, outweigh the headaches. And don't forget the spinoffs, says Dressler.
"We employ people and treat them well. So if you're buying locally, that's helping people to live locally."
Patrick Langston © The Vancouver Sun 2008
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