Ethan
Allen's manufacturing division has been awarded Sustainable by
Design (SBD)
registration from the American Home Furnishing Alliance (AHFA).
The company has also expanded its Enhancing Furniture’s Environmental
Culture (EFEC)
registration to all of its corporate distribution and home delivery
service centers.
“Green isn’t a buzzword here, it’s our business model,” says Ethan Allen
CEO Farooq Kathwari. “We are passionately committed to the idea that
good business and environmental responsibility go hand in hand.”
To enter the SBD program, Ethan Allen had to first implement the EFEC
environmental management system at all of its domestic manufacturing
facilities. EFEC was created by the AHFA to help home furnishings
manufacturers improve their management of resources and raw materials.
The goal of the program is to reduce energy and water consumption as
well as waste overall and its associated costs.
Ethan Allen completed EFEC registration at five manufacturing plants and
one sawmill in August 2012. Last month, the company was granted SBD
registration for those manufacturing facilities. The SBD program extends
EFEC’s culture of environmental stewardship throughout a company’s
global supply chain.
To earn SBD registration, Ethan Allen established environmentally sound
practices and management systems. As a result, the company reduced its
carbon footprint by 32%; electrical use by 21%; greenhouse gases by 26%;
and landfill waste by 54%. The company also increased its recycling by
21%.
Paul Kaminski, Ethan Allen’s Corporate Director of Environment, Health
and Safety, notes the company’s SBD registration is the result of
efforts made over the past decade, including a reduction of air
pollutants by 95% that was recognized by the Environmental Protection
Agency.
As of October, the company has also initiated EFEC registration for its
domestic service and warehouse/distribution centers, with plans to
extend the program to its nearly 150 company-owned retail locations soon.
Ethan Allen Interiors Inc. (NYSE:ETH) is a leading interior design
company and manufacturer and retailer of quality home furnishings. The
company offers free interior design service to its clients and sells a
full range of furniture products and decorative accessories through
ethanallen.com and a network of approximately 300 Design Centers in the
United States and abroad. Ethan Allen owns and operates eight
manufacturing facilities, including five manufacturing plants and one
sawmill in the United States plus two plants in Mexico and Honduras.
Approximately seventy percent of its products are made in its North
American plants. For more information on Ethan Allen's products and
services, visit ethanallen.com.
Follow Ethan Allen: Facebook,
Pinterest,
Twitter,
Houzz,
You
Tube, Instagram,
Google
Plus
Copyright Business Wire 2013