Sustainability

Frankly the world seems to have started catching up with us. We have been quietly running one of the most sustainable, low carbon operations for years without mentioning it.

We use just about the only resource that actually renews itself, namely timber. It captures carbon, so that's a good thing. Its unlikely to release it, at least not for a long time, as everything we make is designed to last for generations. I know of only one kitchen that's no longer around, and that's because they removed the house, and we have been making things for over 30 years.

Most of our heavy machinery was made the same way and some is years old (several machines are pre-war, but still work perfectly). My team use traditional hand tools, again some of them Victorian (the tools, not the team).

And I run a Landrover on LPG, which is one of the cleanest fuels around and pretty abundant, and though its twelve years old because its largely aluminium and was pretty well made to start off with I have no plans to replace it any time soon (bear in mind that a big chunk of a vehicles energy and carbon budget arises from its manufacture). I live and work in the same place, so at least I don't travel to work, and as we are a local business with a local workforce some of my team come by bicycle and the others have hardly any distance to travel.

I invested in admittedly expensive Viking gas ranges and a good quality fridge and other appliances, all of which are now over twenty years old and should continue to work for years to come (slight issue over fridges power consumption, but again the energy consumed manufacturing a replacement offsets this).

We operate a buy local policy where we can, which means materials and supplies don't have to to travel very far. Nothing goes into landfill. We burn our woodwaste and will be using it to heat our workshops soon. If we have to use packaging we choose cardboard, but generally we protect our furniture when delivering it using re-usable blankets. Unfortunately suppliers do use plastic packaging, but we recycle this where we can. Aren't we wonderful!

There is of course room for improvement. Much of the timber we buy comes from abroad, which sadly is difficult to get around as there just isn't the quality timber of the type we use readily available in the UK. However we are trying to initiate a scheme with local landowners whereby they grown at least some of the timber we would like to use, though this is unlikely to bear fruit (or rather wood) in my lifetime. And I have a dilemma with the finishes we have to use, which aren't exactly natural, though I hope we can work on this. Other things we could be doing include rainwater/foul water harvesting, though most of the water the workshop consumes has been in a kettle. I can't see a way around buying in electricity, sadly, though we do our best to keep consumption as low as possible

However I think it would be hard to imagine a more sustainable operation than ours!