Environment
Acanthus and the planet we all share.
If you have the skills, talent & interest to become a furniture designer/ maker and work with this wonderful living material called wood, the chances are you also have a natural interest in how & where the raw materials have been grown and if they will continue to grow, that is most certainly our view within Acanthus.
Many years ago woodworkers would "lay down" timbers for drying that they knew they would never use themselves, it would be for the next generation, they appreciated what maybe we all should, that we are only here and looking after our little bit of the world for a short time and what we leave behind is as important as what we do right now.
Acanthus ensure that we only source materials & products that can be sustained & farmed without damage in the short or long term, we also look for materials as close to home as we can find and any waste materials are accounted for and where possible re cycled to feed back into the system to become other products within the industry or organic waste for farming use.
Being concerned and lowering our carbon footprint can be a complicated issue, the energy consumed by a product in our opinion should be divided by the times you will purchase the same product and how long you will keep the product, if you are changing some products often due to fashion, poor design or poor quality then you are forcing the use of more energy to produce more products, if you buy good designs manufactured to the best quality in a timeless style less overall energy is consumed, at Acanthus pride ourselves on being able to provide the latter, we have furniture still in use afer twenty years plus, giving excellent value for money and helping lower energy & material use by not being replaced.
Ron Eccles Furniture designer.