When Christian and Jasper started working together at first, they talked a lot about sustainability and CSR. They read a lot about the cradle-to-cradle-philosophy. It’s a serious approach to sustainability.
”Earlier on the question of sustainability has been answered by a few mantras and company buzzwords like ’remember to reuse’ and ’remember to economize’. But there hasn’t been anything, which the industry could actually implement effectively. This philosophy could.”
The main idea of the cradle-to-cradle-philosophy is that all products can be taken a part, so that the materials can be sorted and reused or properly destroyed. Also it is important to trace your materials.
”Our chair can be taken a part. You can put the steel in a pile with more steel, and you can burn the upholstery. You wouldn’t be able to do that with a chair wrapped in foam and moulded.”
Tracing materials is hard, but fortunately it gets easier every day. Christian and Jasper are not fanatics, but they try their best. They want to feel okay about their material and they want to have a sense of what is in their delivery and where it originates. They make sure that the foam doesn’t contain dangerous chemicals like some do, and they know that the steel comes from a mine in Sweden.
”Obviously this approach needs to develop throughout generations. It is a community and fellowship we need to build. Every supplier, every manufacturer and every design needs to take responsibility for their part.”
Sustainability is about responsibility, and in the same way the guys want to be responsible about environment and resources, they also want to be responsible as employers, when that day comes.
”In the future we want to be good employers and have a cool company. It’s closely related to the idea of good handcraft: It’s way more fun to have people working for you, who are also fond the art of handcraft and at the same think the company an awesome place to be. And that way you’ll get good products and everybody wins.”