3 Sage Finalists Named

October 13, 2011  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in Green on October 14, 2011

2011 Sage Award finalists for environmental excellence in home furnishings and bedding are Crypton Super Fabrics, Leggett & Platt and Sauder Woodworking.

One of the three companies will be named the 2011 winner on Saturday, Oct. 22, at a recognition breakfast held in conjunction with the Opening Day Press Breakfast for the High Point Furniture Market.

The Sage Awards were launched in 2008 by the American Home Furnishings Alliance and Cargill's BiOH polyols business unit to seek out and spotlight environmental innovators from whom others in the home furnishings and bedding industries can learn. The competition is open to retail, manufacturing and supplier companies in both the furniture and bedding industries.

Crypton Super Fabrics, based in West Bloomfield, Mich., produces a specially engineered fabric system with an integrated moisture barrier. Unlike applied fabric protection coatings, Crypton's environmentally friendly, patented process is engineered into the fabric, encapsulating every fiber. The company's manufacturing facility in Kings Mountain, N.C., leverages best practices and manufacturing technologies to consume less water and energy, emit less pollution and reduce the use of packaging materials. Judges also scored the company high on its efforts to extend its best practices throughout the textile industry by supporting the development of the Sustainability Assessment for Commercial Furnishings Fabric. This fall, Crypton is focusing on its residential products with the launch of €œCrypton at Home.€
 
Leggett & Platt Home Furniture Components, based in Carthage, Mo., has been producing furniture components for over 125 years and sells its engineered components to over 1,500 furniture makers worldwide. All 13 of the company's Home Furniture Components facilities in six states are implementing AHFA's EFEC environmental management system, and three of the largest have achieved registration. Since beginning the efforts in 2008, the 13 facilities have realized significant reductions in energy and water use, and have reduced raw material, waste and packaging use. Packaging innovations alone reduced tons of corrugated waste and saved tens of thousands of dollars. The company's efforts at its No-Sag facility in Kendalville, Indiana, earned the plant a Governor€™s Award for Environmental Excellence this year.

The third finalist, Sauder Woodworking, was founded in 1934 by Erie Sauder, who began the company in a barn behind his Archbold, Ohio, home. Originally building custom cabinets and church pews, he eventually added small tables that he crafted from the "leftovers." With his focus on efficiency, he introduced a new concept in 1951--a snap-together table that could be shipped in a flat-pack box, and the ready-to-assemble furniture industry was born. Long before "sustainability" was a global concern, Sauder's reuse of scrap material and efficient, RTA shipping was setting a standard for sustainable business practices. Since 2010 alone, the company has invested more than $2 million in processes to recover and reuse wood waste; $1.5 million to convert lighting in over 4 million square feet of manufacturing space; and $1.7 million in a system to optimize air flow and reduce energy use.

The winner receives $2,500 from Cargill to be donated to the environmental cause or charitable organization of the winner's choice. All three finalists will be featured in a customized video that spotlights their environmental achievements. The videos will be presented Feb. 22 at the 2012 Sustainability Summit in Raleigh, N.C., and will be featured on the Sage Award Web site for a year. In addition, all three finalists receive a complimentary registration to the Summit.

The three Sage Award finalists were selected by a diverse panel of eight judges representing furniture and bedding industry leaders, environmental journalists, sustainability experts and the furniture industry business press. They included Sharron Bradley, executive director of the Western Home Furnishings Association, a division of the National Home Furnishings Association; sustainability expert Heather Gadonniex, who this year joined Underwriters Laboratories as the organization's new environmental product declaration program manager; and Leslie Guevarra, an associate editor for Greener World Media who has more than 20 years of news experience, including work at the San Francisco Chronicle, where she was a deputy managing editor. Greener World Media is an online publishing group focused on sustainable business.

Judges also include Jessica Kellner, editor-in-chief of Natural Home Magazine, an authority on sustainable home design and materials, earth-friendly decor and natural lifestyles; Jean Nayar, former editor-in-chief of Woman's Day Special Interest Magazines and author of "Green Living by Design"; Ryan Trainer, president of the International Sleep Products Association; Powell Slaughter, senior editor at Home Furnishings Business; and Steve Walker, assistant director of the Furniture Manufacturing and Management Center at North Carolina State University.