What does that mean?
Another Country was founded just over 10 years ago with sustainability at its very core. To us, this starts with designing products that will last, both aesthetically and qualitatively. Wood, that most wonderful, renewable, carbon-capturing material, has always been our material of choice, and we’ve always endeavoured to operate efficiently and responsibly as a business, manufacturing to order in UK and Portugal. We have pioneered the use of 100% natural materials in our upholstery and exclusively use natural, low-VOC finishing oils and waxes (we call this Designing for the Natural Home™).
When it came to our carbon footprint, we have always treaded lightly as a business, but it was time to put a figure on it, remembering that the aim should always be to reduce one’s carbon footprint before offsetting what can’t (yet) be reduced (in our case we have identified areas for future improvement, predominantly in areas relating to energy, logistics and packaging).
Carbon Offsetting Projects
In choosing our offsetting schemes, our broad aim was to contribute to reforestation, biodiversity and to a mix of social & ethical schemes with a focus on developing countries (see why that matters in this article by environmentalist George Monbiot). These types of carbon offset projects help counteract the release of greenhouse gas emissions whilst simultaneously improving the livelihood of the most vulnerable people.
So what do we do exactly? Starting with our corporate footprint, we have been offsetting this since 2020 through UK tree planting schemes with Forest Carbon to the tune of 25 tonnes of Co2 per annum (which technically makes us carbon positive by 19 tonnes); we champion biodiversity initiatives by supporting Rewilding Charity Heal, and have now completed a long term project with Climate Partner to calculate and offset our entire wood furniture production through a number of initiatives: a clean cookstove project in Rwanda (top image), a solar energy project in Namibia, a (worldwide) clean oceans project, and a hydropower scheme in DR Congo (image above).
