We act as an example that businesses can be forces for positive change. We are for-profit, but act in the interest of addressing three pressing subjects: the decline of biodiversity, climate breakdown, and our wasteful material culture. If the first two remain unsolved they threaten the existence of all life on this planet, including our own species.   

At the time of writing, we are on track to miss the target set by the Paris agreement, an international commitment to prevent the atmospheric temperature of the earth exceeding pre-industrial levels by two degrees. Any rise beyond this could be catastrophic. Along with summer 2019’s record-breaking heat in the UK, and rainforest and bush fires around the world, 20 of the hottest years on record have occurred in the last 22 years. 

Concurrently, Britain is one of the most nature-depleted countries on the planet. We exist to change this, championing woodlands and wildlands rich in biodiversity and soaking up CO2. We believe that what we harvest, make and buy can be part of the solution if we ask, ‘what resources does nature want to give us?’.

We design and make for a better future in a forward-thinking, low-waste, carbon-counting workshop and studio in London, England. We manage woodlands for biodiversity and resources in Kent, England.

We worship photosynthesis, and recognise wood as solid CO2. Our mission is to store 100 tonnes of CO2 each year in adored objects in people’s homes, community spaces and workplaces, while the woodlands regenerate and recapture. Through advocacy and action, we want to double the area of woodland and wild land by 2040 and show how its resources can be used.

We create heirloom furniture and homeware, underpinned by our nature-first perspective, and live by our values of taking responsibility, making change, educating with carrots not sticks, using expertise and working with a lightness of touch.

Our business is divided into our workshop, studio, mill and lab. Across these four areas, we seek to address climate breakdown, biodiversity decline and our wasteful material culture. Below is how we tackle each.

How we address climate breakdown

We work with wood, from the UK, efficiently. Wood is the greatest material on earth; solid CO2 that’s strong, lightweight, abundant, familiar, and one which requires little energy to process. Unlike other materials, wood doesn’t need to be melted, fired, forged, or boiled to shape it. The wood we use comes from sustainably managed forests, where the trees regrow through natural regeneration. The forest begins sucking up CO2 again when the replacement trees start to grow.

In 2019 our electricity to sequestration ratio was 1:8. For every 1 kg of CO2 our machines emitted, 8 were stored in the wood it processed. 

As we work, we measure our carbon, using our own life cycle calculators which we share with other interested businesses. This enables us to think about our emissions and eliminate unnecessary energy use. It also makes us mindful of switching the machine or lights off when they aren’t being used.

While 87% of the wood used in the UK is imported, all of the wood we work with comes from Britain. We source the majority of our wood from two family-run timber yards in the South of England who source most of their stock within 100 miles of their businesses. Our raw material is delivered in bulk and this is accounted for in our product life cycle analysis.

It is our aim to make our business so carbon negative that it offsets our core staff’s personal carbon footprints. In 2019 we produced furniture storing, in the wood it is made from, approximately 46 tonnes of CO2. The average person in the UK in 2019 emitted around 5.4 tonnes of CO2 per person. Our 12 staff lead low-impact lifestyles so it is possible that our organisation could reach this goal through a programme of personal carbon assessment and business efficiency. 

We encourage our staff to reduce their carbon footprints by offering personal carbon counting through a sheet we developed ourselves. Most cycle to work and live locally, meaning transport to work is low impact. 

Most of our work gets delivered within London, keeping our delivery footprint small too. 

Unfortunately, we currently use standard grid electricity but we’re pressuring our landlord into allowing us a green energy option. We hope to have this in place in late 2020, reducing our emissions further.

At every possible opportunity we educate (with carrot not stick) around the importance of lowering our impacts. This can be via our social media channels, talking to other businesses, or to students in education. We occasionally take time out of work to join protests and non-violent direct action to fight for change. We also plant trees every winter, but mostly for fun. 

How we address biodiversity decline

We manage woodland and eat organic food. Our small woodland in Kent was a typical unmanaged coppice before we implemented our Forestry England approved woodland management plan, which is designed to boost biodiversity within the woodland first, and yield resources second. Our entire product business is predicated on making use of wood from woodland that needs to be managed. Since we’ve been coppicing in our ancient woodland, reconnecting a broken link back to the Norman period, we’ve seen the return of red-list species like dormice and song thrushes. 

The basic principles of coppicing are that you harvest trees from a small area of a woodland during the winter, and the trees regrow from their stumps rapidly as they all compete for light. The new growth can be harvested young, at around a decade, and the cycle continues. Cutting the trees not only gives useful, fast-grown wood but also lets light in through the opened canopy causing an explosion in life from wildflowers, insects and birds. If there is no use for the wood, it will not get cut, and that explosion of life would not occur so our work with coppiced wood actively boosts biodiversity.

We are known as proponents of a ‘wilder’ UK. In 2019 we wrote and published Modern Life from Wilder Land a nature-first manifesto of land use, which proposed a system of food, fuel, fibre and forestry to bring the UK back from its current nature-deprived status. From this manifesto, we have gone on to create sculpture to provoke conversation and host dinners to propose a wilder food system. We are advocates of rewilding projects and devoted lovers of nature, offering educational coppicing days in our woodland to engage our clients or friends of the business with the benefit of biodiverse woodlands.

How we address our wasteful material culture

We design and make objects that challenge short-term trends and aspire to inheritance. Before an object exists, its life and disposal should be carefully considered. Designers shouldn’t forget that every object in a landfill site has been designed by someone. We take the responsibilities of our profession seriously. Our method for preventing disposal is to create pieces that stand the test of time by following our ten principles of design. An object must be:

• Efficient with materials and making

• Honest with materials and construction

• Functional 

• Simple in form

• Lightweight where appropriate, and always elegant

• Crafted - showing the hands of the maker

• Varied in subtle texture 

• Unobtrusive

• Style-less

• Thoughtful down to the last detail

As well as sending objects out into the world that wish to see the next century at least, we also offer an excellent aftercare service, including a re-finishing service if your furniture gets damaged or ‘over-patina’d’, and a sell-on service if you no longer have space for it. We consider ourselves the best people to re-market our work.

We take our waste seriously, limiting our packaging by delivering directly, and re-using or recycling all of our suitable inbound packaging. Our landlord provides excellent recycling facilities.

Within our production, we have a comprehensive waste strategy; repurposing wood as it reduces in size from the original large boards we buy in. We make offcuts into small products which we sell on our webshop, scraps get given to a local college for education or processed into firewood which we give away, and dust into briquettes which we give away as fuel. We waste none of the solid wood that comes in to our mill.

Combining our no-wood-waste workshop and our sustainable forestry, we operate within a model of circular economy, extracting the maximum possible value from our materials and regenerating them.

Our work is recognised as being significant in the revival of craft and slow movements which have emerged over the last two decades. We stand as an example of how the quality of life derived from surrounding ourselves with things that are intended to stand the test of time, is preferable to our fast-paced, wasteful consumer society.