A quick response to the forest friendly furniture guide
The Forest Friendly Furniture guide released last month has made a splash almost straight away - and that’s before we’ve sent it out to the 40,000 Greenpeace members.
The Warehouse scored well and lost no time on making sure that fact didn’t escape their customers.
Smiths City on the other hand didn’t score so well and initially cried foul but they have since moved forward with a change to their wood product buying policy. As well, in a meeting with Greenpeace they have committed to stock only FSC certified outdoor furniture by 2009 and they will start making those changes in 2008.
This will see Smiths City move from up to a C+ (on the improve) rating and a new position in the guide just above BBQ Factory and just below Placemakers. That’s a good start and a great result!
The challenge is out there now to other retailers to follow suit or get left behind.
The old adage that ‘the customer is always right’ rings true when you look at the success of the Forest Friendly Furniture guide and other consumer guides Greenpeace has published over the last few years.
Over the past few years the GE Free Food guide has proven very popular. It has been instrumental in prompting many NZ food producers to look at their policy regarding Genetically Engineered ingredients. People don’t want to eat GE food and both the food retailers and the food producers know it.
Likewise the Clean Energy Guide has seen NZ energy companies do the same. Thousands of kiwi householders have switched to a cleaner energy company. People don’t want electricity generated from burning coal.
Last month we released the simple guide to ‘forest friendly furniture‘. It shows that the majority of outdoor timber furniture sold in New Zealand is originates from destructive logging of tropical forests in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.
In the 19 furniture retailers ranked the top four retailers on the scorecard are The Warehouse (1st), Briscoes (2nd), Bunnings (3rd) and Mitre 10 (4th). Mr Kwila (18th) and Design Warehouse in Auckland (19th) were at the bottom of the table.
Who’s going to wake up and smell the customer dissatisfaction next? Stay tuned.
Want to do more?
- You can refuse to buy all wood and paper products from ancient forests, unless they are FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified or eco-timber.
- Read our good wood purchasing guide before you go shopping.
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it is important that there is a critical look at all the companies on those guides as well. for example meridian supplies energy to rio tinto, and with its expansion on the west coast would supply dairy and coal expansion - not so environmentally or carbon friendly in the end.
in saying that genesis does have a coal fired power plant and would presumably make more if it was finacially viable and socially acceptable (and legal).
there may need to be a look at things like genetically modified trees later. thinking of trees only as wood and a resource for human use had to go.
good to see progress being made, deforestation is so vast.. eh
There is a solution! Use recycled composite wood! We no longer have to source hardwoods from rainforests, let alone cut any trees.
Composite wood is pretty much the outdoor lifestyle timber of the future. It is extremely environmentally friendly. It does not cut down trees, nor does it need to be treated, painted or stained. It is made of recycled wood & polymers and it looks great.
http://www.britedeck.co.nz has taken the initiative to bring in composite wood decking to NZ. It isn’t outdoor furniture, but you can put your outdoor furniture on it. Just shows, that yes, progress is being made in the marketplace.