The Furniture Market is committed to the conservation of our natural resources by minimising waste, reducing energy consumption and ensuring our furniture is built using sustainable timbers in a socially responsible way.

We apply this principle to the complete journey from sourcing sustainable timbers all the way through to the delivery of furniture into your homes.

Simply put you can be rest assured that we are committed to sustainably sourcing materials used to make our furniture, we are committed to the reduction of energy used in every process and we also strive for the continued welfare of all the people involved in the process and well as giving back to the environment.

What is Sustainable Sourcing?

Sustainable Sourcing is the process of ensuring the furniture that we manufacture is being sourced in a responsible and sustainable way. The people involved in the manufacturing and supply process are working in safe and healthy workplaces and are treated fairly. The environmental and social impacts are taken into consideration during the sourcing process.

Our commitment to sourcing Sustainable timbers

Sustainable timbers are at the heart of our business, after all this forms the foundation of the furniture that we sell. We go to great lengths to ensure our timbers are sustainably sourced.

We (The Furniture Market.co.uk Ltd) are recognised as an “operator” when it comes to placing timber on the UK market and we continuously working to make sure that all timber products we sell meet UK Timber Regulation (UKTR) as this is our legal obligation. Since the 1st January 2021 the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR) no longer applies in England, Wales & Scotland. In its place the UKTR now applies and it has the same requirements as the EUTR.

We check that products are classified correctly in terms of qualities, species and quantities on official customs documents - If not, we take action to get the customs declaration corrected.

• Products must be legally exported from the exporting country - We check the legislation of the country of export.
• We verify that there is evidence of customs fees having been paid.
• If any timber species contained in a product is included in the CITES list of endangered tree species, we will check that there is a valid CITES licence.
• If the export country has an EU endorsed Timber Legality Assurance System (TLAS) under the FLEGT programme, then the product shall be accompanied by a valid FLEGT licence - We will check the validity of the FLEGT licence.

The Furniture Market.co.uk Ltd regularly evaluates and updates our due diligence system regarding the importing of illegal timber and keeps up to date with any new developments via The Office for Product Safety & Standards.

Where does our Oak & Painted furniture come from?

We use FSC Registered manufacturers based in Vietnam, they operate state of the art facilities to ensure the production of our oak, hardwood and painted furniture is of the highest quality standards. The premium quality oak is sustainably sourced from North America.

We use reputable manufacturers that use sustainably sourced timbers. Our sourcing team conduct regular site visits around the world to ensure supplier standards meet UKTR regulations. We have built up professional relationships with these manufacturers over the past 15 years to ensure high quality standards are adhered to.

Our key manufacturers also actively promote the reduction of energy and emissions through using energy saving equipment and processes. These manufacturers also have employee welfare programmes and ethical audits.

Sustainable Forestation

The wood timbers used to make our beautiful oak and pine furniture start off life as seeds (or for Oak timber as acorns), these are planted in forest plantations under a sustainable forestation programme. This ensures an eco-friendly sustainable cycle of timber growth, harvesting and re-planting for the next cycle.

The Journey – Grown for your Home

We strive to continually reduce our carbon footprint along every step of the journey from the trees being sustainably grown to the furniture being delivered into your home.

Once the oak trees are harvested after 35 to 40 years they are cut into planks and kiln dried to ensure the moisture content in the wood is at its optimum for furniture production. The timbers are carefully selected to ensure minimal wastage and great care is made in every step of the production process to ensure that our high quality standards are met.

Once our furniture is efficiently hand built to our design specifications it is shipped in volume directly to our large warehouse distribution facility in Cheshire, from this site we deliver the furniture directly to you the customer.

We believe the less times the furniture is handled the lower the supply chain carbon footprint and also the less chance of furniture being damaged through poor handling.

Eco-minded design to delivery

There are no 3rd parties involved in our operation, you can be rest assured you are dealing with us directly and we are accountable to you the customer through every single stage of your furniture order process.

To further promote the reduction of our carbon footprint we plan all our own 2 person home deliveries to ensure the most efficient routes are taken to minimise our fuel consumption and emissions and thus our carbon footprint per delivery.

We have invested in delivery route planning software and driver analytic software to ensure maximum delivery route efficiencies (i.e less miles driven = smaller carbon foot print per delivery).

We have introduced a fleet of Renault Lo-Loader vans that are specially designed for efficient furniture deliveries. The engines are now Euro 6 and use Ad-Blue to reduce emissions. They are light and fuel efficient so it helps us reduce our environmental impact.

We are also now exploring the use of electric delivery vans as we look to renew our fleet over time.

Other steps we have taken to reduce our carbon foot print are: Investing in the replacement of our warehouse lights with more energy efficient LED lights and the reduction of paper used in our business.

We are committed to giving back to the environment and we have recently planted more than 800 trees in our local area.

We believe in looking after the environment and educating the younger generations on the benefits of sustainable living. Together if we all make a few small changes to our lifestyles we can make big differences to the health of our planet for the future generations to come.