Avocado is working to make sleep more sustainable, helping consumers sleep a little bit better at night. They are proudly the first mattress company in the world to be climate-neutral certified, matching any expenditures throughout the supply chain with donations to wind energy. This California-based brand makes a variety of mattresses, toppers, bases, pillows, beddings, and even bed frames using high-quality and environmentally friendly materials. Avocado uses organic GOTS cotton, FSC certified wood, Responsible Wool Certified wool, and latex adhering to the global latex standard to combine comfortability and being climate aware. If wool isn’t your thing, Avocado also offers a vegan line that is PETA-approved.
By using basic materials, Avocado can audit and ensure each step of the sourcing process adheres to its strict value base, as well as the basic pillars of sustainability and ethics. Their organic latex is grown in India and is safer for farmers due to no pesticide or herbicide use. The trees planted for the latex provide natural habitats for animals, as well as remove CO2 from the air, contributing to healthy water, and employment for family farmers. Their brand-run India latex processing facility is also green, runs on wind turbines and biomass, and also often employs women fleeing domestic violence. Wool is sourced also from India, where their pastures are routinely rotated to avoid overgrazing. In this farm to mattress concept, farmers have access to medical care as well as fair wages. All foreign manufacturing and sourcing adhere to the International Labor Union.
Coyuchi brings organic to the bedroom, specializing in luxury organic cotton bedding. Excelling in their choice of material bases, each resource used is thoughtfully chosen with the health of the planet in mind. Their fully traceable sourced cotton helps the brand maintain accountability when using a traditionally notoriously environmentally intensive material. Linen is also used, a temperature regulating crop that requires little water to grow, and can only be planted every seven years, promoting healthy farming practices by a regularly rotated crop schedule. Wool is sourced from carbon farms, returning carbon dioxide back into the soil rather than the environment. Coyuchi is also Fair Trade certified, maintaining ethical standards for its manufacturing processes and investing financially back into their workers beyond fair wages. Coyuchi believes in investing in regenerative agricultural practices, and partners with a variety of farming groups researching innovative ways to farm more sustainably.
Their “take back” program promotes circularity and closing the textile loop, as customers can return their products to be cleaned, mended, and resold at a zero waste facility for a 15% discount on new items. Since 2019, Coyuchi has taken back 19,031 lbs of fabric, helping eliminate post-consumer waste, as well as promoting buyer accessibility with discounted prices for shopping second-hand.
Nashville-based home brand Newly is a pioneer in the home industry, creating beautiful handmade wooden boards, glassware, and blankets exclusively out of 100% recycled or repurposed materials. Founded by a group of five friends on three truths, Newly recognizes the finite amount of resources on earth, believes sustainable is most cost-effective holistically and holds itself to responsible and minimally impactful manufacturing processes. Manufactured in the US, all products are made in small batches to minimize overproduction, and are each one of a kind.
Newly’s product range uses minimal materials, each 100% repurposed or recycled. Acrylic goods are made of recycled Italian acrylic, and hand-shaped by a South Carolina couple chemically solvent-free. Their signature wooden serving boards are crafted out of reclaimed wood from Tennessee, and their glass wine and drink glasses are sourced from central Spain. Using recycled cotton and plastic water bottles, Newly managed to make delicately soft blankets, woven in California. Newly carefully tracks the environmental impact of each good, converting it into consumer-friendly terms and transparently displaying it alongside each item on their website.
Newly’s founders self-proclaim that they aren’t environmentalists, just humans who believe taking action against climate change is a joint consumer and business responsibility.
Well-known and loved West Elm is a prime example of a big business going eco-friendly. In recent years, West Elm has launched several initiatives revamping product lines with more environmentally aware options. Beginning with their resource base, West Elm has begun incorporating organic GOTS-certified cotton in conjunction with the Better Cotton Initiative, helping to not only diminish their role in “dirty” cotton production but also educate farmers in more sustainable practices. They have also begun the switch to FSC certified wood, with over half of their products using this environmentally preferable material. They have also begun to switch to more ethical labor practices, slowly choosing Fair Trade factories and becoming the first home retailer to join the USA Fair Trade agreement, donating over five million dollars of their profits to date. West Elm also highlights marginalized and local creators in their LOCAL collection, sourcing from independent artists around the US. When shopping, remember to look for these distinctions under the website, as not all products use the same material.
