The Epic Guide to Sustainably Made Furniture Brands

Home decor is one of my favorite topics. I can get lost for hours on end looking at beautiful spaces and gorgeous furniture. And selecting furniture for your home can be a scary task. These are expensive pieces that you can’t really buy on a whim. And there are the particularly important questions: Are they ethically and sustainably made furniture brands? Are they environmentally sustainable? How can one tell?

While my goal is to learn some woodwork and make some of my own furniture, I’m far from that stage. For now, I ogle at stunning furniture. And shortlist sustainably made furniture pieces that I can tell everyone about. I know I cannot own all of them – or even a few of them. But I can shout from the rooftops about their sustainable credentials and encourage others, if they’re planning to buy furniture, to go for the sustainably made options.

In the last post on sustainably made furniture, I went over how to opt for sustainably furniture. In this post, I briefly go over what sustainable furniture is, and I list out some of the epic sustainably made furniture brands that you should check out (if you want to, I mean. No pressure.) You can also check out the post on where to look for thrifted furniture.

What is Sustainably Made Furniture?

Eco-friendly, minimal waste producing, non-toxic materials – these are all part of sustainability. But what makes furniture sustainably made? It includes the materials used to make it, as well as the making process itself. It includes the entire life cycle of the furniture product, from how it is transported around, stored, etc.

Sustainable furniture is made from recycled or re-purposed materials, or from wood from sustainably managed forests. Materials include wood from easily renewable sources – such as bamboo, which grows quickly and easily.

The wood must also be finished with non-toxic substances that are safe for sustained household use – and do not, obviously, poison us or our pets.

Next comes the making process. The entire process, from start to finish, has to be safe for the environment and the people working on the materials. The first mainly has to do with the carbon emissions that are released during the making of the furniture. Do they pollute the environment? The second: do they harm the workers involved in the manufacturing? How fairly are the workers treated? How are the local communities, ecology and wildlife treated? To study the details, check out if they have certification from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) or other such authorities.

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Energy Use in Furniture Making

Finally: How was it transported? The entire transportation system of the furniture brand (from moving around raw materials to bringing the finished products to the warehouse and then to your home) involves a lot of energy use. Try to find out what the brand’s standard practices are regarding transportation.

If your furniture is imported from Thailand, for example, know that a tremendous amount of energy was expelled to get that gorgeous bamboo set to you. Some companies do it more efficiently than others, and today, unfortunately, the onus is on the customer to do their due diligence.

There are further ways to increase the sustainability of any piece of furniture: is it a versatile piece (you can sue it as a bed and as a shelf)? Or, perhaps it’s made from wood that is long-lasting, and you will never have to replace it ever? Or it’s made of materials that can be degraded sustainably or made into something else (so it’s essentially “zero waste”)?

Logically, though, to minimize energy use – and to buy the most sustainably made furniture – it makes sense to buy locally-made furniture that’s been made from locally-sourced materials. An added benefit is that you will be supporting local craftspeople and artisans.

Sustainably Made Furniture Certification

The Cradle to Cradle certification indicates that the product has been “assessed for environmental and social performance across five critical sustainability categories: material health, material reuse, renewable energy and carbon management, water stewardship, and social fairness.” This feeds into the concept of a circular economy, so the certified product will be either completely “waste free” at the end of its life cycle, or used as raw material to manufacture a new product.

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification is about…. well, you can watch their video below:

Ok, with those basics out of the way, let’s look at some beautiful, sustainably made furniture!

30+ Awesome Sustainably Made Furniture Brands

When you need sustainably sourced furniture and furnishings for your conscious home – your bedroom, living room, dining room, kitchen – you should check out these 30 eco-friendly furniture companies. They are eco-conscious, responsible towards the planet, and understand the effect that their business has on the environment – and therefore try to minimize harm. Good place to start!