green home article from BW
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The American Green House
Mass-market retailers are offering more eco-friendly home furnishings,
but without industry standards it's hard to tell the green from the
greenwashed
by Ernest Beck
Eco-conscious consumers can buy their organic milk at mass-market
retailers like Target (TGT), and now, they can pick up an eco-friendly
bookcase there, too. As the greening of the American home continues,
major retailers are betting that sustainable home furnishings, like an
ottoman made of recycled flip-flops, will be next on the green
shopping list.
But as new, lower-priced furniture products are introduced, concern is
growing that green standards might be diluted as the industry shifts
from its origins in small design studios, which produce and sell their
green wares in limited quantities, to mass-market distribution. It's a
similar debate to the one roiling the food industry, as big retailers
like Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) have entered the fray and expanded organic
food lines-sacrificing, some critics say, the organic industry's rigid
green guidelines (BusinessWeek, 10/16/06).
Sustainable Design Goes Mainstream
At this stage, the bigger furniture retailers still are testing
consumer response to the market for sustainable design. Crate &
Barrel, the home-furnishings chain known for its stylish modern
design, doesn't trumpet itself as a green retailer. So for anyone
browsing the company's Web site or shopping at one of its 158 stores,
the Cabria dining table might come as a surprise. The rustic-looking,
$549 table is made of mango wood-a choice, one learns, that is
environmentally friendly because the mango tree is harvested only
after its fruit-bearing days are over. Over in the sofa department,
the $1,899 Lockport marketing copy entices buyers with a "welcome to
the new eco-cottage." The sofa's frame is IndoorAir Quality Certified
by Greenguard, a nonprofit that has established standards to define
goods with low chemical and particle emissions, and the cushions are
made from postconsumer (recycled) fibers and filled with a natural,
soy-based foam.
Crate & Barrel's subtle shift to green is "not green for green's
sake," notes company spokesperson Vicki Lang. "We are responding to
consumer interest," She adds, "And it's the right thing to do."
Other mass-market retailers like Target, Ikea, and even the high-end
chain Design Within Reach are jumping on the green bandwagon, sensing
that growing public concern about the environment will spur consumers
to buy sustainable decor for the living room. The retailers declined
to provide specific figures for sustainable items but did say that
many items in this category are selling well.
The Thin End of the Wedge
Target's Linear bookcase has loads of green street cred. To minimize
greenhouse gases, the $599 storage unit is made from 100% formaldehyde-
free birch plywood and is finished with nontoxic, water-based stains.
It's not the kind of product a typical Target buyer might be aware of
or be searching for, says Sonora Beam, founder of San Francisco
consulting firm Digital Hive EcoLogical Design, but the Linear is
likely to get the message out about saving the planet. "A Target
customer generally wants the right look at a good price," she
explains. "It might be the first time they have heard that furniture
can have a low environmental impact."
At Design Within Reach, the company began its green revolution by
identifying existing products in its catalog as green-including many
of the company's classic midcentury furniture pieces-and then posting
the products' "eco-stats" on its Web site. That Eames wire-base table?
It's certified for Greenguard's low emissions standards. The Emeco
Navy chair is eco-friendly because it is made of 80% recycled
aluminum. As a second step, DWR instructed its buyers to find "the
coolest design pieces that have a good eco-story," says DWR
spokesperson Erin Brown. One discovery was the $350 Miss Rio Ottoman,
which "repurposes" soft rubber derived from unworn, overstocked flip-
flops. (Another plus: It's made by a social organization in Brazil
that helps unemployed craftspeople.)
Still, as with other retailers, eco-products such as the ottoman
represent only a small part of DWR's offerings-about 240 of some 1,000
items are listed in the online eco-stats. But that's changing. Next
year the San Francisco company will issue a separate, green-products
catalog and introduce under its own name an all-organic mattress made
with wool from sheep "who are allowed to roam free," says DWR's Brown.
Lang, of Crate & Barrel, says that while a total conversion to green
would be difficult, since many products are sourced from other
manufacturers and vendors over whose production they have little
control, it is a "general direction" for the Northbrook (Ill.)
retailer.
A Lack of Industrywide Standards
One problem for all manufacturers and retailers, when it comes to
furniture, is the lack of a fixed definition or commonly agreed
understanding of what constitutes green. Bamboo is a popular renewable
material for sustainable furniture, for example, but shipping it from
China to the U.S. doesn't do much to limit greenhouse gases. And any
surfacing material can be made less green by applying toxic stains and
finishes. While several organizations-such as Greenguard and the
Sustainable Furniture Council, which promotes sustainable practices in
the industry-provide guidelines for certain products, there's no
regulatory body that sets standards and certifications as the
Agriculture Dept. does with its USDA Certified Organic label for food.
With so many overlapping and competing guidelines for home-furnishing
products, Target spokesperson Amy von Walter acknowledges that "the
plethora of certifications can be somewhat daunting." To help clarify
green guidelines, von Walter says the company is creating a "cross-
functional team" to evaluate sustainable products and procedures from
design stage to sale.
Retailers are taking different green approaches. DWR adheres to
"mainstream classifications" such as Forestry Stewardship Council
guidelines. (The FSC is an international nonprofit founded to develop
principals of sustainable forestry.) But it might also promote in its
upcoming green catalog the idea that buying an heirloom piece like the
Emeco chair helps the environment because it's unlikely to be
discarded in a landfill in the owner's lifetime. Emeco's Hudson chair,
for example, "is made to last up to 150 years," says DWR's Brown.
Meanwhile, Swedish retailer Ikea provides more generalized eco-labels
for many items in its massive lineup of products. The $129 Alve
bookcase is made of solid wood, "not from intact natural forests,"
according to the company; the components of the PS Eden table can be
separated for "material or energy recovery."
Greener Than Thou?
Without specific industrywide standards and labeling, however, "there
is a danger that people can be easily confused about whether what they
are buying is entirely eco-friendly," says Rebecca Silver, executive
producer of Haute Green (BusinessWeek.com, 5/23/07) an annual
exhibition in New York of sustainable design from small studios and
manufacturers. As retailers try to mimic what the pioneer green
designers have done, Silver adds, "they can make it up as they go
along."
By comparison, small firms like Q Collection, a luxury eco-furniture
company in New York, say they offer more overall control of materials
and the manufacturing and design process. "We provide a holistic
solution," says Jesse Johnson, chief executive of Q Collection, which
sells items including the $16,000 Abigail settee and the $7,000 Helen
bookcase, which use water-based stains and finishes.
While he welcomes more green home furnishings on the market, Johnson
worries about the possibility of false or misleading claims about
materials, pointing out that the furniture industry is just as
susceptible to issues of greenwashing (BusinessWeek.com, 3/29/07) as
other fields that have struggled with deliberately misleading claims
of sustainability. What some retailers are doing as they launch green
products, he adds, "appears to be 90% marketing and 10% a real
exploration of concrete advances in materials and production
techniques," he says.
One benefit of big retailers entering the green market has been lower
prices for consumers. Volume orders and new manufacturing sources are
creating economies of scale-even for upscale firms like Q Collection.
The firm's new children's line features a stacking shelf made of
formaldehyde-free multidensity fiberboard, priced at a somewhat more
affordable $300 per cube.
Ernest Beck spent almost a decade as a staff reporter for the Wall
Street Journal in Budapest and London. After leaving the Journal in
2002, he became a freelance contributor to numerous publications
including the New York Times, Metropolitan Home, and SmallBiz. He is
the editor of the book Brancusi's Endless Column about a mysterious
sculpture in Romania (Scala, 2007).