Why Buy Sustainable Furniture?

What are the most important things you're looking for when you buy new furniture? I'm going to guess: style, quality and price. But if you've landed on this green blog, you must be looking for sustainability too. So today we'll share our...

Top 3 Reasons to Buy Sustainable Furniture

Save the Rainforest!

Do you know where your wood furniture comes from? If your retailer doesn't actively inform you about this, chances are it's coming from illegal clear-cutting of the world's precious and rapidly disappearing rainforests. Over the last couple weeks, several articles have brought this to light:

• Another 700 Hectares of Bolivian Rainforest Lost to Sugarcane Surge
• Indonesia is Burning. So Why is the World Looking Away?

We're losing rainforest at an unsustainable rate of 1.5 acres every second. In many cases the wood is stolen from developing countries too poor to protect it. Logs are shipped to Asia where they're fashioned into cheap furniture that's sold in big box stores all across America. Three years later, the furniture falls apart and gets thrown out on the curbside. What a waste.

Rainforest destruction in Indonesia is pushing the Sumatran tiger (and orangutans, clouded leopards, sun bears, gibbons, Sumatran rhinos) toward extinction. When you buy sustainable furniture that's made with responsibly harvested trees, every dollar you spend is a vote to protect these animals and their environment.

Support Local Communities

In Vermont, nearly 80% of our state is forested. Our forest products industry employs over 10,000 people and has a $1.4 billion economic impact. As demonstrated by Vermont's Working Lands Initiative, we are serious about managing our forests for the generations to follow us. But our forest industry is struggling as we compete with cheap imports of unknown origin.
When you buy sustainable furniture from Vermont you are supporting an entire working community including: land owners, foresters, loggers, sawyers, lumber dealers & furniture makers. You're helping us carry on the centuries old tradition of producing fine, handmade, heirloom quality furniture that will serve it's purpose for many generations.

Get the Best Value For Your Investment

We estimate that with our Vermont made furniture, 85% of your purchase prices goes into sustainably harvested wood and American labor. Only 15% goes into shipping, marketing and administration. Not true for imports! Some estimates indicate only 5% of your imported furniture purchase price goes into the furniture makers' labor and only 1% goes into wood. The remaining 94% of your purchase price is directed to marketing, advertising, shipping, profit and extortion payments (World Bank report: Combating Illegal Logging and Corruption in the Forestry Sector).
Although the initial investment is higher, when you buy sustainable furniture that's American made you'll find it's your best value in the long run. Your furniture and the forest it came from will be around to enjoy for generations!