Sustainability is a word we hear more and more often, used by companies and people to emphasize the need to consume less and better to respect the environment and the planet.
Everyone of us has made more sustainable choices in our lifestyles in recent times, some more, some less: from not using plastic bottles, plates and glasses for example, to not buying products that come from countries where there is exploitation of labor often even of children, from limiting clothing acuists to consuming less meat, not using polluting detergents, etc…..
Furniture companies that I deal with and know very well are increasingly moving towards choices that are considered sustainable: from the use of quality materials that last over time, to adopting rules in the production process that do not pollute, that respect the environment and energy resources.
These are also ethical choices that more and more of us consumers are paying attention to.
The quality of furniture products, technical, functional and aesthetic, is essential to ensure their durability, so that they remain in good condition, continue to perform their function for us and our homes, and never stop pleasing us by becoming ‘evergreens’ that never go out of fashion and whose value increases over time.
Our family business has always espoused this principle, ever since the word ‘sustainability’ had not yet entered our common vocabulary.
Quality has a cost that pays for itself over time: as our elders used to say ‘He who spends more spends less’. This was in the era before consumerism and the ‘disposable’ trend that for a number of years dominated our purchases especially of clothing, but also, to some extent, of furniture.
Here you will find interviews with furniture entrepreneurs that I conducted during the Salone del Mobile 2023: two of them-Lorenzo Porro and Alessandro Sarfatti-explain how their companies deal with the complexity of the increasingly central and strategic issue of ‘sustainability’.
