Our Strategy

RESPONSIBLE MANUFACTURE

Carefully crafted and built to last, our furniture has been designed using a life-cycle thinking approach. We design products for disassembly and with the longest lifespans in mind. From fully traceable hides and feathers to sustainably sourced timber, we think hard about the materials that go into our products and the ethics surrounding their production. To move closer towards a circular economy we choose healthy and renewable materials, materials with a high recycled content and those that can be easily recycled at end of life. Our furniture take back system, ReWork, means you can return a product to us for remanufacture at end of life. This puts our extended producer responsibility into action and makes sure we design with end of life in mind, so that a product’s materials may be reclaimed and circulated over multiple lifecycles.

TRANSPARENCY

We have created environmental product summaries for our entire collection so that you can easily see which products have the highest renewable or recycled content. We are in the process of carrying out a full life cycle assessment for each product range so that we can assess embodied impacts across 13 categories, from global warming potential to water use. This visibility will help you select the most sustainable products for a project and guide us to where we need to make change. Head over to our resources section to see our LCAs and watch this space over the coming months as we add more ranges. A collaborative approach is the quickest route to change at scale, we are always happy to share information and knowledge. If you would like to pick our brains or have a bright idea please get in touch sustainability@modusfurniture.co.uk

KEEP IT SIMPLE

Sustainability can seem like such an enormous, all encompassing labyrinth it is important to stay focused on where we can influence change. We direct our efforts at our six biggest areas of impact: carbon emissions, resource use, effects of material ingredients, plastic pollution, waste generation and impacts on people. We have organised our sustainability strategy to reflect these key issues, to aid transparency and because sometimes the simplest way is the best.

READ OUR ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY

SET AMBITIOUS TARGETS

We are facing a climate and biodiversity crisis never seen before. Our targets are ambitious because they reflect this crisis and they align with the far reaching objectives of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals which aim to reduce pressure on the planet and its most vulnerable people and bring about greater social equity.

MAKE IT COUNT

In making our collection we look at a product’s whole of life impacts, from cradle to grave, respecting planetary boundaries and avoiding social or environmental trade-offs. We have developed our sustainability strategy with the purpose of creating lasting, measurable and meaningful change.

Read our Impact Report

GET CERTIFIED

To show our commitment to our sustainability journey we hold FSC chain of custody, ISO14001:2015 certification, we are members of the Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme, a Carbon Neutral Plus Organisation and an accredited Living Wage Employer.

View certificates

Our objectives

REDUCE CARBON

Our furniture is made in our Somerset factory using 100% renewable electricity and a local supply chain to keep furniture miles as low as possible and embodied impacts down.
We carefully measure our operational carbon (across scope 1, 2 and some scope 3 emissions) so we can map our route to net zero and we are calculating the impacts of our entire collection so we can design out embodied carbon along the way.
The greatest impacts lie in the materials we use to make our products so this is where we can make the most meaningful change. We are analysing our current collection to see how we can reduce impacts and using this information to develop better products for the future.
When it comes to embodied impacts, some of our products are better than others and we will happily share this information so that you can make the right product selection for your project.
PROTECT HABITATS AND RESOURCES

It’s not all about carbon, land use and land use change has massively altered the biodiversity landscape and is contributing to the sixth mass extinction. How we use our land, the resources we use and the habitats that we impact is something we think carefully about - from our hand scythed wild flower bank to sustainable material sourcing, habitats and resources matter to us because once they’re gone, they’re gone.
We use renewable materials that have been sustainably harvested and recycled materials to ease the burden of resource extraction. Over 90% of our collection is available with FSC certification and we are working on the rest. Our cork furniture is 100% recycled and comes from FSC certified forests that help conserve some of the most species rich ecosystems in the world.
Our ReForest programme sees us plant a tree for every ten items we supply, supporting indigenous communities to restore lost ecosystems, providing biodiverse habitats and improving food security for years to come.
MAKE HEALTHY PRODUCTS

We think carefully about the ingredients that go into our products so we can create furniture for healthy spaces. To keep indoor air quality tip top and VOC emissions down, we use water based lacquers that carry the EU Ecolabel, and CertiPUR certified foam across all traditionally upholstered pieces. We have phased out chromium plating and we use non-chrome tanned hides as standard.
Renewable, non-toxic, and recycled materials that are readily recycled are our top choices for making furniture that contributes to the well-being of people and planet.
MINIMISE OUR PLASTIC FOOTPRINT

Because of its enormous embodied carbon and poor end of life solutions, we think carefully before we use plastic, always favouring recycled plastic over virgin material. Our Richard chair uses over 100 recycled bottles in every shell, helping keep post-consumer plastic waste from marine and terrestrial environments. Reducing plastic in our packaging is a work in progress and there is still a fair way to go to transition to completely plastic-free packaging.
Recycling what is already a problem is a good solution so we are proud SEAQUAL INITITATIVE licence holders which means we can offer furniture upholstered in fibres made from reclaimed ocean plastics. We are currently working on an upholstery collection that uses natural fillings as an alternative to polyurethane foam.
REDUCE WASTE

Our products carry a ten year warranty as standard. We design out waste by offering replacement parts including loose covers across 7 upholstery collections and offering a remanufacturing, take back service, ReWork, to keep products in use over multiple lifecycles.
Read more about ReWork.
PEOPLE POSITIVE ACTIONS

We are an accredited Living Wage Employer which means we pay a wage that has been independently calculated by the Living Wage Foundation to cover the true cost of living. We invest in our local community and the designers and makers of the future by offering apprenticeships and internships.
We work with community groups, the Design departments of our local schools and educational settings offering alternative provision to disaffected young people by donating quality materials to help stretch budgets and enable the teaching of confidence building, hands-on skills. Our recycled cork stools, Bob and Michael, are partnered with Movement On The Ground, 5% of the sales of these stools supports their mission to provide a dignified, innovative and sustainable response to the global refugee crisis.