Furniture Store's Sustainable Rating Scheme

The independent furniture store Chest of Drawers is launching a rating scheme to help customers understand the environmental impact of their furniture purchases.

They've developed a system that rates furniture according to the wood source, workshop practices and furniture miles, and are hoping that it gets adopted as an industry-wide measure. The shop aims to sell only furniture from sustainable and responsibly-managed sources in the long term. In a refreshing change from people saying it's just up to consumers to force companies to become more ethical, Kim Corbett, a director at Chest of Drawers, took some responsibility back:

There are some good initiatives in the pipeline from specialist NGOs such as the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) and WWF, but we feel it is incumbent on retailers like ourselves to take up the gauntlet and move towards sustainability today.

Before you think this is mere PR fluff, Chest of Drawers does have some walk to match their talk. They've already dropped three suppliers who didn't seem all that fussed with improving their methods of production, added to which the company has a sustainable procurement policy, practises carbon balancing via the Land Trust (January 2007), buys clean energy from Ecotricity, recycles office waste via Paper Round (as audited by the London Environment Centre) and offers staff a bicycle through the government’s Cycle to Work scheme.

Given the above, it's worth checking out the Chest of Drawers stuff, especially the Pacific and Caspian ranges, made of reclaimed walnut and elm. It isn't cheap (dining tables ranges in price from £345 to £1300, chests of drawers start at £265), but then buying the cheap and nasty stuff is usually a false economy.

Chest of Drawers' furniture looks gorgeous and ought to last a lifetime so the environment (and your conscience) wins twice: it's environmentally-friendly at the point of manufacture and it lasts so long you send less to the rubbish dump recycling centre.  I'm certainly going to have a look at the store to invest some of my own cash when I have a new home to furnish next year.