RESPONSIBILITY

We established the Designed For Life Foundation to donate a percentage of every sale from our product collection to charity. Our furniture and lighting is predominantly specified for luxurious hotels, bars, restaurants and high end private homes and we felt it was important to help balance this. So for every product sold from our Collection you are automatically helping donate to the following three charities concerned with providing those without the basic needs of food, water and shelter:

FareShare - The UK's national network of charitable food redistributors, taking good quality surplus food from across the food industry to reach school breakfast clubs, older people's lunch clubs, homeless shelters and community cafes

WaterAid - Providing clean water, decent toilets and hygiene knowledge to people who don't yet have access to them. Working with local partners, communities and governments to develop sustainable solutions worldwide

ShelterBox - An international disaster relief charity, providing emergency shelter to vulnerable and hard to reach communities who have lost their home to disaster, enabling them to rebuild their lives

We manufacture most of our products in the United Kingdom. Being a UK based company this allows us to reduce transport energy consumption, particularly when a project is also UK based. Producing in the UK also allows us to support local industry and communities

We have developed most of our upholstered seating to have the option of being manufactured with natural materials including coconut fibre, natural latex, wool & cotton wrap and feathers. This minimises the impact on the environment by reducing the use of harmful chemicals, plastics and oils as well being biodegradable at the end of the product's life. Natural materials are also far better for the health and well being of those using our products

We have introduced recycled materials into many of our products. This includes working with the German manufacturer Magna to provide their 'Glaskeramik' material for our table tops, which is produced from 100% recycled waste glass. We also work with London stone specialist Diespeker to provide their terrazzo material which includes crushed recycled glass and marble off-cuts. A selection of our products are produced from clay and terracotta which create very little waste as off-cuts and unused material can be easily reused in future production

Most of our products are made from abundant and sustainable materials. We use timbers including Ash and bamboo, which is very fast growing and requires no fertiliser or pesticides. We use natural stone, glass, clay and terracotta on many of our products which have a very low embodied energy (the total energy within the material from extraction to finished product). Our natural upholstery option minimises the impact on the environment as highlighted above and we work with UK based Alma Leather to provide their natural cow hides that have a sustainable 100% vegetable tan finish. We will be introducing a vegan option as an alternative to our current leather selection very soon

We ensure our factories and craftsman only ever use sustainably sourced timber that has been given either FSC or PEFC certification. We will never use exotic tree species from non-renewable forests

Our Azzero and Kyoto lighting ranges utilise efficient LED G9 bulbs. For our Wharf, Siloso and Chalford lighting ranges we work with the UK based lighting brand Tala to provide their long lasting and low energy LED bulbs. Tala bulbs look fabulous thanks to their old filament style design but with using the latest LED technology. Tala are committed to reducing carbon emissions in the atmosphere and support reforestation programmes around the world

We work with well respected craftsman, factories and workshops who use high quality production methods, together with durable and premium materials, to ensure our products are created for a long life span. We are passionately against a throw away culture and design all of our products to be resilient and long lasting that can be handed-down over generations rather than thrown away

Many of our products are easily disassembled and can be taken apart by hand (or are single-material) so they can be separated into their individual materials to be recycled, biodegraded or reused

We know there is more that can be done and we will continue to research and review areas in which we can improve our responsibility as a brand.

We are also keen to hear from companies, who provide sustainable materials and manufacturing techniques, which we could utilise in our next furniture or lighting range or interior project. Please contact us if you feel you have a product we might find of interest.