Funiture and ecology

ECOLOGY AND THE FURNITURE INDUSTRY

You can feel good about buying wooden furniture because by doing this, you are actually sequestering carbon. Wood is roughly 50% carbon by weight (SampsonGroup.com). Trees take carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) out of the atmosphere to get the carbon needed for their structures. So if you have 1,000 pounds of wooden furniture in your house, you have taken 500 pounds of carbon “out of circulation”. (500 pounds of carbon translates to about 1830 pounds of carbon dioxide). This assumes that the trees that contributed this wood are replanted, and that sustainable forestry is practiced. Though this is often the case, progress still needs to made. The furniture industry is acutely aware of the importance of doing this. Sustainable forestry supports a sustainable wooden furniture industry, and as a fringe benefit, carbon is sequestered in the form of furniture.