Top 3 Reasons Sustainability Matters in Design
Introduction
At Origin Woodworks we design and build rustic furniture for your living and work spaces.
A core value is environmental sustainability. It is baked in to everything we do, from sourcing lumber from local mills to donating to have new trees planted.
Sustainable design and creation of our products means thinking about how our business and processes affect the natural environment and how we can minimize our footprint on the environment.
But why does it matter? Why bother to think about how things are made and where they come from?
There are numerous reasons why sustainability matters in modern design.
Top 3 Reasons Sustainability Matters in Design
Population and Resource Use
Have you checked world population numbers recently? We’re approaching 8 BILLION people! That’s 8 THOUSAND MILLION PEOPLE. In world history, we’ve never approached these numbers.
Think about the amount of resources being consumed. That’s 8 billion people who need water to drink. Food to eat. Shelter and clothing. Not to mention all the other physical goods a typical human consumes in terms of home products. Day after day, year after year.
Every physical good has to come from raw materials extracted from the Earth somewhere. So we source locally from mills in the St. Louis area to ensure the raw materials don’t have to travel very far.
When one product sells, we donate to One Tree Planted, a non-profit dedicated to planting trees around the world where they’re most needed.
Lastly, making products from wood, when done responsibly, ensures a lesser impact on the environment.
Improved Health
It’s no secret, often our indoor environment contains unnatural products and building materials.
Many products in our indoor environment give off VOCs, or Volatile Organic Compounds. VOCs are chemical particles that disperse in indoor air and can contribute to a variety of health issues including respiratory illness, headache, damage to liver and kidneys, and even cancer.
VOCs are often found in plastics, carpet, cleaning supplies, paints, and aerosol sprays.
With products made from wood, you don’t have to worry about harmful VOCs entering your home.
Reduces Waste
The first principle in anything related to sustainability is to consume less.
One way to achieve this is to buy products that are made well and last several lifetimes.
At Origin Woodworks, our products are made for the long haul. We take pride in quality and craftsmanship. In general, when you buy a product made of wood you can rest assured that it will last a long time.
That means that you don’t have to replace a piece of furniture often. That in turn means that less waste enters our landfills. Landfills, while a necessity, have their own host of problems including off-gassing of methane and carbon dioxide which help worsen climate change.
Conclusion
Everything in our built environment has an impact on our natural environment. When it comes to sustainability it’s about considering how we use and consume natural resources. It’s about number of inputs vs. outputs.
It is the way forward if we are to continue as a species on our shared planet.
At Origin Woodworks, we always strive to have this principle first and foremost in our work.
Let us know how you think we can improve, leave a comment :)