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Most people don't think about the environmental impact of their furniture. But the truth is, the furniture industry is a major polluter.
From the trees that are cut down to make wood furniture to the chemicals used in upholstered pieces, our furniture can have a significant environmental footprint.
But it doesn't have to be this way.
The best sustainable furniture brands around right now in 2023 are using eco-friendly materials to make beautiful products at affordable prices.
Furniture that, unlike mass-produced rubbish, will last for years to come.
I always felt I have an eye for home decor and interior design, so testing these products was pretty much my idea of heaven. Sit back and relax as I introduce you to the best brands around...
They Say: Come home to style! Founders Darryl & Jessica reside in Houston, TX, where Edloe Finch is based and warehoused. They have three children, Bria, DJ (Dade Jackson) & Cash - who drive and inspire them every day.
We Say: Edloe Finch is an excellent online furniture store that offers chic modern furniture products with quality, style, functionality, and sustainability as its top priorities.
With no retail stores or salespeople, you can shop online for an amazing variety of furniture at great prices.
Edloe Finch is a perfect choice if you want to add some class and sophistication to your home without breaking the bank.
I love the commitment to customer service and the fact they offer free shipping and hassle-free returns.
Edloe Finch offers a full range of furniture, but it's coffee tables where it excels for me.
The Quinn Coffee Table (Beehive) and the Nala Coffee Table are particularly special. Both are made from solid wood (no hidden MDF here) and look utterly stunning!
Free US shipping is available on all orders, and 0% finance is available if you need it.
They Say: When it comes to your home, we believe you shouldn’t settle–for generic design, lesser quality, or anything short of a perfect fit. What if you could have more, without the designer price tag? Heritage quality, direct from our craftsmen, minus the retail markup. We’re thrilled to bring you a better way in furniture–and exceptional products you’ll be proud to include in your home.
We Say: Maiden Home is a brand that produces affordable, high-quality, eco-friendly furniture.
This is done by cutting out expensive showrooms, wholesalers, boutiques, and warehouses.
Instead, they make furniture to order in their workshop and then ship it directly to the customer's home.
I recently visited a publisher friend of mine to ‘talk shop’. It was a relaxed affair, and we ended up having the meeting in her lounge room.
She had an enormous Jones Modular configuration from Maiden Home, that looked incredible in her minimalist home.
Every furniture piece made by Maiden Home uses responsibly sourced and non-toxic materials and comes with a lifetime guarantee.
Some are even CertiPUR-US and GREENGUARD certified for extra peace of mind.
They Say: At Plow & Hearth, we love giving back and doing good. Our team strives to make a positive impact on people, pets and the planet. It’s part of our culture, and important to our community and customers.
We Say: The Plow & Hearth brand began life in 1980 as a small local store in Madison, Virginia.
Since that time the company has been involved in several environmental initiatives. In 2008 they launched the Campaign to Reforest America, in partnership with the National Forest Foundation, which has already resulted in more than 3 million trees being planted across the country.
The company also supports numerous good causes, including the Shelter for Help in Emergency, the MESA Food Pantry, the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, and the SPCA.
All this shows that they're an ethical and environmentally friendly brand, but what about the furniture itself?
Well, Plow & Hearth features an extensive range of indoor and also sustainable outdoor furniture, using both sustainable upholstery and reclaimed wood.
Both the design and build quality of this furniture are truly exceptional.
There's so much great stuff here I'd need a second home just to fit all the items I like. But Mrs. M has a personal favorite - the Metal Cow Accent Table - and it's hard to argue. It's awesome.
All furniture products are backed by a full satisfaction guarantee, so you can see how it looks in your home, then return it for exchange or refund within 90 days.
The only downside I can see is that there is no shipping carbon offset in place, so you need to remember to do that yourself, especially if you're returning items.
✔ Range of Independent Sellers
✔ No Middle Man
✔ Carbon Offset Shipping
They Say: Find something memorable, join a community doing good.
We Say: Etsy is fast becoming one of my favorite online destinations for sustainable products - including home goods and furnishings.
And now I’m OBSESSED with the vast array of reclaimed furniture on the platform. They're all produced by small independent brands and individual sellers who all have sustainability as a core objective.
It was hard to know which piece of Etsy furniture to test. But I love the look of wood and metal and I was in the market for some office furniture to embrace my zero-emissions work-from-home lifestyle.
So I’m typing up this article sitting at my industrial desk from PastosCo which I definitely recommend.
Other stunning items I have my eye on include:
With over 20,000 Etsy reclaimed furniture options currently, I’ve no doubt you’ll find a piece, or three, to suit your taste and budget.
On the subject of budget, if you shop around and take your time, you can get some fabulous bargains. This is due to cutting out the intermediaries and buying directly from the maker.
I love Etsy’s renewable energy commitment and also that they offset the carbon emissions from delivery and packaging on most purchases.
We Say: Another of my absolute favorite zero-waste marketplaces, Made Trade, has an entire section dedicated to affordable sustainable furniture.
There are many ethical furniture companies on Made Trade, but my favorite at the moment is Masaya & Co.
Mrs. M and I love our Coyolito Sofa. It lives in our garden room and is perfect for getting away from the girls and snuggling up to read.
There are many things to love about this piece of eco furniture. My favorite two are:
Made Trade is a woman-owned, family-run small business. They’re also a Climate Neutral Certified company, so you can be sure your new furniture purchase will have minimal impact on the planet.
You can also be sure that you're getting fair trade furniture courtesy of the Fair Trade filter on the Made Trade website. It verifies that the workers who made a particular item of furniture received fair pay and safe working conditions.
They Say: Run by its founders, Cliff Spencer and Leigh Spencer, Alabama Sawyer, designs modern, environmentally sustainable products from fallen trees in the Birmingham, Alabama area. Since we began, we have diverted hundreds of logs from the landfill by transforming them into award-winning furniture and products for homes and businesses.
We Say: “Trees Fall, Y'all”...I love this Alabama Sawyer slogan.
In fact, I love it so much I would buy the t-shirt…if only it were organic cotton!
It’s not just a clever marketing line, though. It’s also one of the key philosophies of the Alabama Sawyer wooden furniture company.
Trees do indeed naturally fall. The Alabama Sawyer furniture company rescues them before they go to landfill and turns them into stunning furniture.
This unique "treecycling" process is the ultimate in sustainable forestry, and produces high quality furniture products made from fallen trees.
As part of its sustainability initiative, Alabama Sawyer has also considered their packaging. The vast majority of their products are shipped blanket wrapped, meaning they can be reused in perpetuity. Fantastic!
They Say: Elegant, warm, and charming, we handcraft our unique Cedar Stump Side Tables in our FSC®-certified Los Angeles woodshop with 100% red cedar and a non-toxic, clear varnish. Available in three heights. Not returnable. Note that color variations are to be expected and part of the charm.
We Say: Avocado is one of my favorite sustainable sleep specialists.
But what do all those things need? Good quality bed frames to support them of course. Avocado is one of the best eco-friendly furniture companies that makes some of the highest-quality bed frames around.
And now I’d also like to add their Cedar Stump Side Table to my list of favorite Avocado products.
I love quirky sustainable pieces like this.
There are many reasons to love this table, beyond the obvious one of it looks hella cool!
There are plenty of other bedroom furniture pieces in their range that I'l; be adding to my Avocado review and based on my tests so far, I'd expect any item this company makes to have a perfect mix of quality, sustainability, and style.
✔ Hand Made in the USA
✔ FSC Certified or Reclaimed Wood Furniture
✔ Overstock Discounts
They Say: Before it was "trendy" to be green we recognized the importance of this mission and the inherent beauty within it. Our merchants travel far and wide to bring you the very best products from across the globe, each filled with decorative charm and representative of our commitment to socially and environmentally conscious practices and materials.
We Say: VivaTerra has been trading since 2004, and you'll have to go a long way to find a greener company than this.
The name VivaTerra (which means ‘living earth’) is inspired by their dedication to working in harmony with nature.
It also reflects their mission of bringing modern, eco-conscious furniture design to the mainstream.
They’re doing this by focusing on five key values:
The Tree Branch Coat Rack is currently my favorite VivaTerra piece.
It’s a lovely ‘hybrid’ nod to their sustainable ethics. A striking branch-shaped coat rack made from long-lasting and sustainable recycled metal.
Many of the chemicals used in the production of furniture (glues, sealants, coatings, protective sprays, etc.) off-gas potentially harmful Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) into your home.
The EPA reports that levels of VOCs can be 2 to 5 times higher inside homes than outside.
They also go on to say that a potential cause of these increased VOC levels might be “building materials and furnishings”.
Eco-friendly furniture uses zero chemicals, so it stands to reason that it can help reduce VOC levels in your home.
Buying from furniture companies using sustainable materials is good - but in terms of sustainability, sometimes buying secondhand furniture can be even better.
I’ve said it many times before…but it bears repeating again, and again!
Don’t buy new furniture (or new anything) if you don’t have to.
Second-hand, pre-loved, reclaimed. Whatever you call it, giving unwanted furniture a new lease of life can help save the planet and a few bucks too!
A fantastic first port of call for quality second-hand furniture online is AptDeco.
A sustainable brand should use furniture materials that won’t harm your health or the health of the planet, such as:
Certifications that help give you peace of mind that your sustainable furniture is as free of toxins as possible include:
Look for furniture and home goods manufacturers with a strict code of conduct across their entire supply chain.
Ethical furniture brands will:
Certifications that help give you peace of mind that you are buying both ethical and sustainable furniture include:
Fast furniture brands, also known as fast fashion for furniture, have gained popularity over the past few years due to their low prices and trendy designs. However, there are several reasons why you should consider avoiding this type of brand:
For all these reasons, it's really important to consider the long-term impact of your purchases. Look at every furniture brand's sustainability, environmental practices, materials, and ethics, and invest in high-quality, sustainable furnishings.
IKEA looks to be taking its environmental responsibilities seriously but I would not yet describe them as fully eco-friendly.
We recently featured them in our roundup of big companies trying to go green. and they have been commended by the Sustainable Furnishings Council for their efforts in improving the sustainability of some of the wood they source for their furniture.
However, one of my criteria for sustainable furniture is longevity. Companies like West Elm and IKEA traditionally sell cheap, entry-level, furniture.
Great when you’re a wannabe zero waste college student on a budget…but not so great for the environment if you have to replace it every few years.
Wood is the most common material for eco-friendly tables. When sourced sustainably, it’s a natural and renewable material.
Yes. Bamboo is a wonderfully sustainable natural resource that can be made into furniture and many other products. Read the latest facts about bamboo sustainability to find out more.
According to FlexiSpot, the seven best options for sustainable wooden furniture are:
Learn more about the sustainability of wood for bed frames in my guide here.
Yes. Tencel, a material sometimes found in soft furnishings, is considered a sustainable fabric.
One of my dear old dad’s favorite sayings is “buy cheap, buy twice”, and I feel that applies perfectly here.
Yes, good-quality sustainable furniture from eco-friendly furniture brands can be expensive (sustainable products are usually more expensive than their mass-produced counterparts).
However, it’s usually worth every cent because sustainable furniture is usually built to last a lifetime.
Just be careful when following fads and trends. Replacing furniture every few years because it’s outdated is unsustainable.
Where do you buy your eco-friendly furniture? Have I missed any of your favorite sustainable furniture companies?
Do you know of someone doing good for the planet with recycled metal? Or a kick-ass wooden furniture company? Drop me a line and let me know.
Our core values mean we always prioritize sustainability over profit. We carefully evaluate and personally test every product to ensure they meet our high standards. All products recommended in this article were tested in accordance with our Review Methodology.
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