Norway's Minus makes "carbon-negative" chairs that you "subscribe" to - ensuring they end up as bio-char
From Dezeen, a report on an ingenious ‘circular economy’ exercise from Norway. The Minus brand debuted its first furniture collection, designed by Oslo studio Jenkins & Uhnger, with this manifesto slogan:
All chairs are designed to bear the weight of a human, but none to bear humanity's weight on nature. This is our mission. To make chairs the minus way — giving nature the comfort that nature gives us.
Dezeen reports further:
The strategy is to design with "a 100-year perspective", says Kristian Notland Harnes, the brand's CEO and co-founder.
This means taking responsibility for a product after it has left the factory, ensuring it stays in use as long as possible and is recycled at the end of its life.
"In the western world, a chair generally lives for 10 years," Harnes said. "If the wood takes 100 years to grow, there is an imbalance there. It's 90 per cent deforestation."
"It's about material control," he added. "That leads us to subscription because it enables us to take responsibility for the material lifespan."
…When the pieces are no longer serviceable, Minus says it will take them back and convert them into a charcoal-like substance called biochar, stabilising the carbon contained in the timber and preventing it from being released into the atmosphere.
The result is a kind of fertiliser that can be added to soils to help them sequester more carbon.
From Minus’ website
…According to Minus' calculations, the chair produces -2.6 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions throughout its life when rented or 1.9 kilograms when purchased outright, compared with an industry standard of 27 kilograms.
Minus plans to offer all of its products for sale or subscription, although the subscription model is currently still in the trial phase and only available to select businesses.
"Customers initially sign a 30-month subscription period, which basically covers our production cost," said Harnes.
"The price falls 30 per cent every three years, giving you an incentive to keep the furniture longer. It is also possible to subscribe to used chairs at a lower price."
NOTE: All product photos in this blog are credited to Bastian Achard