Sustainability
Photograph: Theo Vickers
Our approach
Let’s start with what we do: Contemporary British furniture designs supplied from quality British furniture makers.
Buying from the British Design Shop means buying authentic British designed and made goods direct from the maker, created by skilled local craftsmen, using only the most select materials.
We are also seeking to improve all aspects of our sustainability over time and recognise that we can and must do more.
We remain open to finding new collaborations and finding new more eco-friendly solutions.
Some of the benefits of making locally and supporting our manufacturing industry
- Helps sustain the local economy
- Supports families, cultures and regional traditions (adopting fair trade principles)
- Quality products / made to last
National safety and environmental standards
Transport distances are reduced (the UK imports ~£3 billion of furniture from Asia each year, this product typically travels ~5,000 miles)
To be clear, we often admire products that are designed and made in other regions. It's just that we believe it's better to source locally made products where possible. This way fewer sofas will be passing each other on ships in the night, whilst at the same time it helps to sustain local skills and traditions.
Things that we do and have done to date
We always have and always will make products that are made to last. We produce quality frames for our furniture that use timber sourced from FSC or managed forestry sources.
Our factories are based in England. This also means that we comply with all aspects of British legislation such as human rights, environmental and product safety standards.
We have launched and continue to offer more recycled fabric options in collaboration with our fabric suppliers. We have also added recycled cushion options during the last 5 years.
For example, our recycled cotton option uses recycled yarns taken from the cutting tables of the fashion industry and our deluxe recycled weave fabric is made from recycled plastic bottles.
We have collaborated with the Marine conservation society and pledged not to use PFAS chemicals (also known as forever chemicals) in our products.
Our latest sustainable modular sofa collection, Lola by Russell Gillott features cushion fillers that are made from recycled post-consumer foam mattresses and is offered with fabrics made from 100% PET recycled polyester yarns, produced from waste plastic bottles. Approximately 35 x 1.5L bottles are used to produce 1m of fabric.
We donate £100 to the marine conservation society for every Lola collection order, In 2024 we donated £2642.
We have recently introduced a reupholstery service for all our existing upholstery collections, we will collect the products, reupholster them and drop them back when they are done.
Our approach is open and we are a work in progress (we don't claim to be perfect in all aspects of sustainabilty, for example we use packaging on our products to protect them and the vans that deliver our products have diesel engines in them).
Packaging is taken away at the point of installation and is recycled.
If you have any questions, just ask and we will do our best to answer them.