My Thoughts on Shop Sustainability

Sustainability… tons of books are written on sustainability. For us, the company has to be sustainable, or what we’re doing isn’t going to be sustainable. We have to make the whole picture work, and so we grapple with a level of sustainability that we can accommodate. That means sourcing our wood practically, but also knowing that the places that we’re buying our wood are getting their logs sustainably. For the most part, we do buy logs. We do buy some lumber, but American hardwoods are generally … The lumber is generally sustainably sourced by law. The mahogany that we get from Honduras, we know the people that we’re working with, and have known them for quite some time, and we know that that’s sustainably sourced.

Buying your materials from a source that is quote unquote sustainable is a tiny part of what makes your overall effort something that can be done for generations. Quite frankly, I don’t think we’re really at that point. We source our materials sustainably. We have a company that comes in that composts our wood shavings. We make sure that our scrap is either sold by the pound to be reused for other purposes by other craftsman, or we use it for fuel. We minimize our trash as much as we can, but we’re still using electricity that’s generated by coal or gas, and as long as we’re doing that, there’s an issue. It’s fossil fuel.

We’re always working toward increasing our sustainability. I’d love to hear your thoughts. How are you addressing shop sustainability?
I’d love to hear your thoughts. How are you addressing shop sustainability?