You’ve just finished choosing a new interior design for your home–maybe it’s one room, maybe it’s the whole house–when you see another program or article about the environment. Looking at your plans, suddenly the question of the impact of your home improvement on the world sours your enthusiasm. Wooden floors are never out of fashion and everyone wants one. It would have just added the perfect atmosphere to your new design. Feeling like this is understandable and there are three ways to react to it.
You can abandon your plans and either live with what you have, never quite getting over that feeling of disappointment and hating when guests see your home and think it’s how you’ve chosen to make it look.
You can buy a floor from a supplier that doesn’t care about the environmental impact of their business, who buys wood without checking where it comes from, whether there is responsible forest management that will affect surrounding communities and the environment, and the impact of shipping the wood, processing it, and supplying the finished product. Every time you switch on the TV, see a social media post, or news article about climate change, the floor beneath your feet–no matter how clean and high quality–will start to feel… tacky.
Just as with most of things in life, there is a third way. What? Find a company that values the environment as much as you do. Not because it’s ‘trendy’ but because the company actually cares. There aren’t enough of those although you can find some with long histories of responsibly sourcing wood and caring for the environment.
Don’t give up on your dream home. Don’t put those dreams ahead of the environment. See all hardwood flooring solutions here and breathe easy.
