Sustainability

Things we do to exercise sustainability

The two biggest goals in our production are that our products need to be desirable (well designed and well crafted) but also that our production is lean, natural and sustainable.  That's actually like 6 goals but you get the point.

Working with as much lumber as we do really puts a focus on sustainable practices.  Just the choice of building with lumber in itself is a sustainable one, versus making plastic widgets, but there are many opportunities to improve beyond that.  I’m constantly thinking of how we can get better, and it’s a process that I'm learning, but here are the sustainable practices that we employ right now:

One Tree Planted

For every order made to Plot & Craft, we donate $1 to One Tree Planted, an organization helping with reforestation.   For every $20 spent beyond the initial $20, we donate another $1.

Our Products are Made-to-Order

Most of our products are made to order and those that aren’t are kept at a very low inventory and made in small batches.  This keeps our operation lean and cuts down on wasted materials & unsold products.

We Reuse & Recycle

We aim to reuse or recycle byproducts from our builds whenever possible.  For example, we use wood chips for packing material, we use shavings in production of our aromatherapy boxes and fire starters and many small detail pieces such as handles, feet and trim are used from byproducts of other builds.

We Minimize Waste

We reclaim materials when we can.  It can be difficult to use reclaimed materials for everything but we do it whenever possible.  It's very satisfying to complete a build using reclaimed wood.  This is an area that we're just getting into and we hope to expand to more products.  

All items using reclaimed wood will be indicated in product descriptions/images.

We Minimize Waste

All of our builds begin with raw pieces of lumber.  Instead of just grabbing the next piece up, we’ve come up with a system to efficiently use the lumber we purchase.  By pre-planning our cuts, we reduce the amount of cut-off waste.  

We also design some products with the intention of using up small cut-offs - in other words, what can we build that will be beautiful, useful and also use up the pile of extra wood we tend to collect?  The percentage of waste in woodworking is already naturally high so it’s important to us to really focus on reducing this as much as possible which means sometimes we need to design from the end, not the beginning.

We Believe in Durability Over Disposability

We design and build simple, classic, useful products for life.  We want everything we make to last a lifetime so we avoid trendy designs and materials.  Also, we try to build as much function into our designs as possible so if a piece is no longer needed for the intended function it can still be used in other ways.  It’s a design challenge we’re always thinking about. 

For example, if you mount your monitor on the wall and no longer need the monitor stand you purchased, it's still a nice looking stand with a drawer that you can use for storage inside, on top of and underneath.  It's not an unsightly plastic monitor stand without a monitor, it's a small piece of furniture with some versatility. 

We Purchase our Lumber Locally

We’re lucky enough to have a great lumber supplier within 5 minutes of us so most of our wood is purchased there, which cuts down on transport.  Occasionally we have wood shipped when it’s not available locally but most of our designs intentionally use locally sourced varieties.

We Have a Small Footprint - seriously small :D

Our "shop" is a modest 10’x10’ space.  We’ve adapted nearly every piece of the shop to be convertible or movable.  Smaller space means less room for waste and requires us to stay very lean and creative.  I’ve spent a small fortune putting caster wheels on everything lol.  We may upgrade at some point but having to adapt to such a small space has been an overall positive and so I think staying on the small side is a good idea.

Staying All Natural is Important to Us

We try to get as close as possible to 100% use of natural materials - and we’re pretty close!  We occasionally use 3D printed elements or small supplementary hardware in our builds but the vast majority of our builds are from solid natural woods.  This is less a sustainability choice and more that we just think natural tends to be more beautiful but it’s still something we work on.

We Keep Things Simple

We keep our finishes simple.  We minimize use of chemicals to treat the wood we use, opting for natural solutions instead.  Cedar is a go-to for pieces that need natural moisture resistance.  We love using oil as a natural finish and will use urethane or shellac when protective coating is needed.  

We’re Still Working on It

Sustainability is a cornerstone for what we do so we’ll always be looking for ways to improve how we operate, while keeping our products affordable.

We’d love to hear ways you are practicing sustainability and if you have any suggestions for ways which we can improve, we’re happy to hear it!

Cheers,

Walt