Our overarching environmental policy can be summarised as follows:

1. Adhere to a well-researched and thought through sustainable wood sourcing policy

2. Build solid beautiful furniture that will last generations

3. Help preserve and expand native forest by donating 10% of profits to organisations with this goal

4. Re-use and recycle as much as possible

5. Minimise waste

More about the wood we source

As a small company whose main raw material input is wood, it is clear that our wood sourcing policy is the single most important factor in determining our impact on the environment, and is therefore where most of our energy goes in our effort to have a positive impact on the environment.

As someone who cares deeply about nature, and in particular, about the preservation of wild spaces, I want to be absolutely sure that we are in no way contributing to deforestation, or even to the conversion of natural unspoilt wilderness into managed forestry, no matter how “sustainable” it is.

In setting our sourcing policy, we’ve made a little effort to read up about and understand the timber industry, how illegal logging enters the supply chain and what we can do to ensure that we use only wood from sustainable forestry. Illegal timber is a huge problem and a huge industry globally ($152bn annually - National Geographic), and the supply chain is complicated, so there is a lot to study. We’ve tried to determine a policy that reduces the chance of us unknowingly using illegally harvested timber, and that is manageable for a company of our size.

Wood Sourcing principles:

• We will be selective about which wood species we use and in no circumstances will we use wood species that are endangered or near endangered

• We will determine our sourcing policy by species / product type

• Where possible and practical, we will source wood that is certified by reputable bodies such as the FSC or PEFC

• We will avoid sourcing wood from regions from which it is known that illegally harvested wood enters the legitimate supply chain

• We will source wood from as close to our operations as possible to minimise carbon emissions

• Support suppliers and schemes that sustainably harvest from, and thereby support the preservation of, native forests

• We will continue to learn about and research the industry and primary suppliers to continuously improve our impact

Wood specific sourcing policy:

• European Oak (Low risk): Only use wood certified by the FSC or PEFC, or that is brought directly from a primary source that we have visited and verified ourselves

• Birch Plywood: Only buy wood that is certified by the FSC or PEFC

• MDF: Only buy wood that is certified by the FSC or PEFC

• Walnut: Only use wood certified by the FSC or PEFC, or that is brought directly from a primary source that we have visited and verified ourselves

• Tropical hardwoods: until we have the ability to visit suppliers at source in Africa, Asia and South America, we will not use any tropical hardwoods (e.g. teak, mahogony, meranti, Balau, Ipe), many of which are on the endangered species list. The WWF estimates that 50-90% of tropical hardwood from these regions is illegally harvested.

James Carter, Founder of Knotch