Knu Office, Knu Office, Knu Media Centers, Knu Screen/Room Dividers, Knu Tables at Bobby Berk Home

Knú's unique, original designs are manufactured in West Michigan by Industrial Woodworking Corporation (IWC), which has been supplying high-quality furniture for three of the largest office furniture manufacturers and one of the largest health care furniture suppliers in the United States since 1995.

Knú is a proud member of the Sustainable Furniture Council, a non-profit industry association committed to promoting sustainable practices within the home furnishings business. Sustainable practices are those that create a healthy balance between the environment, local economy and social equity. The SFC motto is "People, Planet, Profit" and SFCs immediate goals are to raise awareness of the sustainability, assist companies in adopting good practices, serve as an information clearing house and create a symbol of assurance for customers.

Energy Conservation & Carbon Offsets:

Knú and Industrial Woodworking Corp. have teamed up with the Carbonfund.org to offset all carbon emitting forms of energy. All electricity, natural gas, air travel and vehicle use is offset using Green-e certified alternative energy credits and though our support of renewable energy programs in support of Carbonfund.org's CarbonFree program.

Our newest plant addition (completed May 2007) uses F-Bay fluorescent lighting, These high efficiency lights consume 30% less energy than traditional metal halide lighting while maintaining 89.1% foot candle output (compared to metal halide’s 70%) over the life of the bulbs, which is a 20% longer lifespan. Our winter heating is handled by IR heaters which use around 25% less energy than conventional forced air heating methods.

Resource Preservation:

Knú’s customers are sophisticated, computer literate and online, so sending a catalog is a huge, unnecessary use of our collective resources.   Creation, delivery and disposal of catalogs all negatively impact the environment. Millions of trees, thousands of tons of chemicals and excessive amounts of energy are used to manufacture and transport glossy paper catalogs that just end up filling our landfills every week.  Knú will not market our products using direct mail catalogs, product information will be predominately available right here on our web site or, at your request, through our email Knúsletter.

Direct mail deforests 100 million trees per year, equal to the loss of the entire Rocky Mountain National Forest every four months. Only 32% of all catalogs are recycled, so 68 million trees per year end up in our landfills. In 2003, 5.4 million tons of direct mail - enough to fill 420,000 garbage trucks - ended up in the U.S. Municipal solid waste stream. Parked bumper to bumper these garbage trucks would extend from Atlanta to Albuquerque. (From U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Forest Service, Conservatree and New American Dream).

Materials & Manufacturing:

Our raw materials come from regional suppliers, 90% are within a 50 mile radius. The proprietary hardware used in our furniture - the legs, etc. - is manufactured using approximately 40% recycled content on average. It is 100% recyclable. Wood components are produced from Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified multi-ply birch whenever possible. Our primary wood suppliers are FSC-certified. The pencil drawers in our desks are recyclable, injection-molded plastic.

Our engineered veneers are produced from Italian poplar that is harvested and manufactured under stringent methods that ensure sustained yield and minimal environmental impact. Although this may look like an exotic rainforest species, it has simply been dyed and pressed to mimic rainforest timber. Visit our suppliers website to learn more. The poplar carries SGS certification.

There are no contact adhesives used in the manufacturing of Knú products. Contact adhesive is one of the very worst volatile organic compound(VOC) offenders used in commercial woodworking today. All lamination at IWC is accomplished using water borne PVA adhesives. This class of adhesive contains zero VOCs. Also, the hot press used in our lamination process uses pressurized hot water. Most hot presses use oil as the heating medium, which degrades over time and must be changed every few months creating more waste. Our finishes are HAPS (hazardous air pollutant) compliant. These finish products have a greatly reduced VOC content which in turn is extremely valuable in minimizing production of greenhouse gases.

Shipping:

Knú products are all designed to be shipped via UPS. This allows all products to be shipped directly from our factory to you, greatly reducing the environmental footprint of logistics. We do not ship our products to centralized distribution centers hundreds or thousands of miles away from our customers just to ship some of that product right back down the street from where it was produced. This just doesn’t make any sense to us.

 

Reduce, Recycle and Re-use:

We routinely salvage what could have been trash for use as raw material in other products. Nearly all of the packaging material from incoming shipments is recycled. From cardboard to skids to foam spacers, anything that can be recycled or reused is given a second life, and in some cases is used repeatedly. More than 70% of furniture shipments from Industrial Woodworking Corporation are blanket wrapped. This eliminates the costs associated with the use and removal of packaging materials. It takes us more effort, but it’s better for the environment and it also saves money.