Find a Green Manufacturer - Century Furniture

Standard Best Practices

• We pay a living wage rather than minimum wage & we extend that around the globe: Yes
• We have a written Social Equity Code of Conduct as a baseline for employee relations: Yes
• We have written and distributed a Supplier Equity Code of Conduct for our vendors and conduct training at our partner facilities on the adoption of same: Yes
• We and our partners meet or exceed all local health and safety codes and can document our health and safety working conditions in all our facilities/stores: Yes
• We have participated in or sponsored in-store, community and/or regional educational events on sustainability and the environment: Yes
• We investigate and mitigate any negative environmental impacts from our operations: Yes
• We regularly ask for verifiable chain of custody documents (legal logging certifications) before buying wood products: Yes
• We are eliminating unsustainable virgin materials from our product offerings while increasing our percents to total of rapidly renewable resources, reused/reclaimed components and recycled content. We factor disassembly, recyclability and product reclamation into buying decisions: Yes
• We have decreased our use/acceptance of known toxic chemicals for treatments, binders and finishes, replacing compounds that harm indoor air quality and are carcinogenic: Yes
• We are asking our vendors for organic cotton in place of conventionally-grown cotton and for textiles that are Oeko-Tex certified: N/A
• We are getting quotes on doing a Life Cycle Analysis and/or are applying for SMaRT certification: No
• We extract, manufacture and distribute for consumer use within a 500 mile radius for at least a portion of our product line: Yes
• We offer a product reclamation/product reuse policy: No
• We use recycled or recyclable packing/packaging materials, offer blanket-wrap transportation arrangements for customers and have a carton return/reuse policy: Yes
• We hold third party certifications for some of our products/as a store, we promote and educate the consumer on the meaning of various third party certifications: Yes
• We take responsibility for sharing our commitment to sustainability up and down our entire supply chain, rewarding our vendors with increased business for partnering with us on this path to sustainability: Yes
• We save reams of paper with our policy expressing an aversion to excess written documentation: Yes
• We have had an energy specialist/utility company audit to measure our conventional energy usage and are on track to reduce it, replacing a portion with certified renewable energy, either directly or by contacting Green e-Power: Yes
• We have replaced outdated and inefficient equipment, identified and changed wasteful resource procedures and implemented tighter operational controls: Yes
• We have increased the use of daylighting and instituted a fluorescent bulb exchange policy for direct cost savings: Yes
• We make only verifiable sustainability claims in adherence with FTC mandates against greenwash and in support of their Environmental Marketing Guides. Authenticity and adoption of one credible standard reduces confusion in the marketplace, driving sales: Yes
• We conduct training in-house and in the broader community about global climate change and our partnership with the SFC: Yes
• In keeping with our commitment to continual improvement, we are planning to take the following actions this year: On energy consumption: Through our EFEC program our plants will continue to find energy waste and reduce energy consumption per product produced. In 2009 we substantially reduced energy consumption per unit produced and expect to see similar reductions in 2010.
• In keeping with our commitment to continual improvement, we are planning to take the following actions this year: On how we will manage our primary material or service to a more sustainable direction: We have launched a program between Century and all our vendors that sell us wood products to tell us the scientific names and county of harvest (as required by the Lacey Act) and at the sane time to categorize these purchases in the Rainforest Alliance heirarchy (1- FSC, 2- Non controversial, 3- other forest certification schemes, 4- certified legal, and 5- known). We will review the data continually for problems that need immediate attention and then renew the map every 6 months to identify areas that need special attention to direct them toward a more sustainable path. For example, we are in discussions with the TFT to partner with our vendor in Vietnam to provide on the ground monitoring of harvesting of Acasia to ensure legality and move towards sustainability. This is a major project that we think will shift our purchases of wood products to be substantially more sustainable over several years.
• In keeping with our commitment to continual improvement, we are planning to take the following actions this year: On education and promotion of the sustainability cause: We are in the process of educating ourselves- factory employees, office employees, and sales representatives- concerning sustainability and what we are currently doing and what still needs to be done. We are also committed to train and help our wood products vendors to understand our desire for sustainability and the need for us to make choices that move us toward sustainability. This will include fully understanding the implementation of the program described in #2, the RA classification scheme, and how choices our vendors make in their own factories will make our resources and our industry more sustainable.