All of us – companies and citizens alike – pursue a fundamental objective to live and work in such a way as to reduce our carbon footprint. For those like Uno Contract, working in an industry that makes massive use of wood, there are many opportunities for fighting climate change. Our primary imperative is to approach responsibly the creation and production of our furniture, carefully tracing our sources and using only timber from sustainably managed forests.
Uno Contract has been FSC certified since 2011.
FSC – The Forest Stewardship Council is an international NGO, independent and not-for-profit, that promotes the responsible management of forests and plantations. FSC certification attests that the raw materials used in products come from sustainably managed forests to standards of sustainable procurement and chain of custody certification.
In 2020 Uno Contract, FSC certified since 2011, created a furniture collection for the hospitality trade, named Uno Essential and designed by Ciarmoli Queda, which includes all the sustainable features laid down by FSC Standards. This represents our wish to increase awareness of this issue in our own business sector. All the furniture is made of timber from sustainably managed forests that conform to FSC Standards, and all the wood species involved are finished exclusively with water-based products. In addition, we have banned plastic components from this collection.
In the context of the 2020 FSC Italia Furniture Award, Uno Contract received the Special Chain of Custody – FederlegnoArredo Award, which highlights the commitment of FSC-certified companies to manufacturing products using FSC-certified timber.
The FSC Chain of Custody is a system that ensures the traceability and tracking of information regarding the journey of products, starting from the forest – or from the collection site in the case of recycled material – to the consumer. It includes each stage of processing, transformation, production and distribution, where going from one stage to the next involves a change of product and material ownership. This standard establishes the minimum requirements to be observed by a Chain of Custody system to prove that the materials and products purchased, labelled and sold as FSC-certified are exactly that, and every declaration associated to them is correct and truthful.
This award highlights a journey started by our company many years ago. We operate in the contract sector, where our clients establish the characteristics of our products and where up to now little attention has been paid to sustainability. We have created Uno Essential, a collection designed for the Hospitality industry, complying with all the sustainability features of FSC Standards, in an attempt to raise awareness of the issue also in our business sphere.
Planting trees brings many long-term benefits for our planet’s ecosystem, both globally and locally, and enhances the economic welfare of local farmers. For this reason, Uno Contract has chosen to plant a forest on the African continent, in Tanzania, to sustain the entire planet.
The method adopted by Treedom is to plant trees in existing agroforestry systems. This method is rooted in conventional wisdom and can be beneficial to both the climate and people. Treedom projects are examples of cooperation, transparency and perseverance. Forestry Managers, who are expert agronomists, contact NGOs or associations already established in the project area and draw up a forestry plan. The combination of species is different every time, because the farmers must be able to harvest the first fruits within just a few years of planting, and the biodiversity of the area in question must be observed and, if possible, enriched.
The aim of Treedom projects is to have a positive impact not only on the environment involved, but also on the people living there. That’s why the project areas are in developing countries, where the benefits trees bring can truly make a difference.
