The four pillars of our 2021 sustainability goals

We are making a commitment to producing our furniture as sustainably and eco friendly as possible. This is an end to end commitment which starts with how we operate in the office, through to production, transport and packaging. 

However, we are only a tiny team! So we are breaking our ambitious goals into management chunks and sharing the journey with you every step of the way. We know there will be ups and downs as there are with every business step but we want to show you all the good bad and ugly bits as we go. 

We know that our customers are as passionate about sustainability as we are and we want you all to know that we are working as hard as we can to reach these goals. 

1. Seconds Sales

We are now selling all of our less than perfect or transit damaged products in monthly seconds sales. This helps reduce waste and gives a wider range of customers the opportunity to buy our furniture. To further the benefit of our seconds sales, we will be partnering with an environmental charity who will receive all the profits from our monthly sales, the charity will be announced on 11th November 2021

2. Packaging

This is our first but toughest goal. Getting our furniture to customers in one piece is always going to be a challenge. There are heavy items, delicate corners and voids to deal with, knowing that our busy courier partners might not always be as delicate with our packages as we would like. We currently use recyclable cardboard boxes which constitutes as significant proportion of our packaging. We currently have use polystyrene to protect our furniture in the inner layer of the box. We are yet to find something that is AS effective as this but we are testing testing testing and are determined to find something that works. The other factor is of course cost. Most manufacturers aren't using sustainable packaging and so, the cost of it is still high. Once it becomes industry standard of course that cost will come down as with all economies of scale. We want to be trailblazers in this respect but are also conscious of not having to raise our prices for customers. 

The goal: by the end of 2021 find a polystyrene replacement for at least 50% of our packages. 

Where are we with this: we have replaced all our polystyrene corners with layered cardboard corners. 

3. Sourcing

As a producer of solely wooden furniture, we are consciously aware of how where our wood is coming from. Currently, all of our oak products are sourced from sustainably sourced oak wood in European forests which are all protected by EU laws on sustainable forestry. 

4. Marketing and lifetime use

We do not market unnecessarily and we don't buy into trends. We don't have 'drops' to encourage customers to spend on the latest and newest look. We produce furniture that will last and can move from place to place with you. Of course we understand that sometimes, something just doesn't work in your new place and we are working on a solution for you to recycle your old Urbansize furniture if you need to