Sustainability

In our own fight to reverse climate change we measure the carbon footprint of our furniture projects and we give back to nature by planting trees and contributing to rewilding the Scottish Highlands.

Climate change is the long-term change in climate derived by human activities. Burning fossil fuels and cutting down trees means that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide CO2 have increased together with the heat trapped in the atmosphere.
UK temperatures have already risen. Globally, extreme weather is predicted to become more common and to have a negative impact on humans, animals and plants.
Whilst the UK government has a commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 50% on 1990 levels by 2025, in May 2019, UK Parliament declared a 'climate change emergency'.

It is the responsibility of businesses and individuals to address relevant change.
Our Directors take active part in conservation projects, from planting trees in Belize permaculture food forests to saving endangered whale sharks in Madagascar.
Our personal stories and experiences reflect in our ethics as a Company, and we implemented a new initiative to become a climate neutral business, giving back to the environment as resources are taken away for manufacturing purposes associated to our industry.

The Furniture Industry Research Association created a study that benchmarks the carbon footprints of furniture, factoring in raw materials, manufacturing processes, packaging materials, storage and transportation amongs others factors.
The end result is a carbon footprint of each individual product.
When using our furniture project management tool, we assign a carbon footprint for each product type - Ie. for a chair we use 27 kgCO2e.
This way we get an idea of the carbon footprint of our projects and know how much we need to offset to ensure we are giving back to the environment what we take away.

Rewilding enriches the landscapes, wildlife and people who call these places home. It is about working with natural processes and seeing human activity as part of an intricate system in which everything is connected.
Scotland was the first country to declare a climate emergency.
To honor this, Arteficius chose Tree for Life as a favourite charity whose vision of a revitalised wild forest in the Scottish Highlands provides space for wildlife to flourish and communities to thrive.
Tree for Life approach encompasses land management, biodiversity, food security, livelihoods and climate change.

Planting trees is recognised by scientists as the number one strategy towards mitigating carbon emissions to address climate change.
We are working with Trees for Life to set up our own grove dedicated to rewilding the Scottish Highlands. For every 150 Kg of CO2 emitted, we will plant one tree in our grove.
So as our business grows so will our grove.
Each tree we plant will help to rebuild the Caledonian forest which once covered over 1.5 million hectares of the Scottish Highlands.

We are advocates in creating changes in our industry and we like to work with small to medium scale, family-run artisanal factories who understand our ethics and philosophy and whose values align with ours.