John Eadon uses time honoured techniques in his sustainable furniture design. The wooden furniture he makes is modern in style and designed to last a lifetime. Indeed, more than a lifetime as the products are ‘forever repairable’, making them potential heirlooms.
Each piece is made with attention to detail. This can be unnoticed by the user, for example a dovetail joint where two types of wood meet. Or visible, like the cushion edge to a custom table for Warhammer games to contain the tiles during use and hold the dice.
Sustainable furniture design begins with the selection of wood. Most of the timber is from the UK and, as you would expect, verified with an FSC or PEFC certification. Timber is also sourced privately from local landowners, windfallen or felled through disease. As such is not independently verified.
Components and consumables are chosen from ethical suppliers and for their low VOC properties, for example low PVA glues and no VOC natural oil and wax finishes. Everything is chosen with the end of life in view, so that the pieces can be restored or recycled.
Zero wood waste
The ideal is zero wood waste and John Eadon goes to great lengths to utilise every piece of wood. Small offcuts are used to create elements of larger furniture or homewares and accessories. Offcuts that are too small to use provide clean burning, renewable fuel. Wood shavings and sawdust become animal bedding. They are ultimately composted and return to the earth.
The central location of the workshop on a farm in Warwickshire makes deliveries from suppliers and deliveries to customers easier. The company uses DHL who have set a net zero target of 2050 and who want to be the ‘green logistics of choice’.
John Eadon are working through our ‘Let’s Do Net Zero’ programme to measure their existing carbon footprint and identify areas of improvement. One of their ambitions is to convince their landlord to swap to renewable energy. Until then they are monitoring energy usage.
The company wants to achieve ‘carbon negativity’ where it removes or captures more carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere than it emits, resulting in a net negative carbon footprint. They feel that is a very long way off for a small company. But they hope that as technology improves and more businesses ‘continue in the same fight’, it will get closer and become more realisable.
“Our materials factory is not a resource greedy industrial mine or a refining plant, it is the biodiverse woodland and forest which is an intrinsic part of the health and balance of the planet. Done right, we can be improving this all the while the trees are growing their timber and maintain and manage it through the sympathetic harvesting and processing of these materials into long-life objects, enhancing our lives and that of the planet’s.”
Sustainable furniture design
If you would like to order products from John Eadon, visit their website at www.johneadon.co.uk. A selection of furniture, lighting and accessories is available for sale. Bespoke commissions can include cabinets, desks, wardrobes, staircases, kitchens and unique work like the Warhammer games table.
