Reframe talks carbon tracking with Emeco’s Jaye Buchbinder
In this interview, Reframe talks with product engineer Jaye Buchbinder of American chair brand Emeco. She joined the family business in 2018, after receiving her bachelor’s and master’s at Stanford University in Sustainable Design and Engineering.
The daughter of Emeco’s owner and CEO Gregg Buchbinder, and based in California, Jaye has grown up with Emeco’s chairs and the importance of caring for the environment. She was instrumental in launching Emeco's initiative to measure and declare the carbon footprint of its products.
BC: How would you describe your work to your grandma?
JB: We make furniture, out of waste materials, that last a lifetime. And she would respond: “Well, that’s how we always used to do it.”
BC: Some people think sustainability isn’t the right word because it’s so vague and used for almost everything. What do you think?
JB: We definitely relate. Sustainability is a blanket term; there are many different ways of being more sustainable and companies can choose to talk about whatever is good for their brand. This is a challenge for all of us as consumers and corporates.
The truth is in manufacturing and distribution, it is impossible not to have some kind of negative impact on the environment.
In the absence of the complete picture, i.e the impact, the sustainability initiatives remain non-contextualized. For example, the number of trees a company plant, or their use of solar energy or using less water are all important initiatives, we all know that sounds good, but most of the time, we have no clue how much of these initiatives help reduce their overall negative impact on the environment.
As consumers, we have no standardized comparison, no context, and usually insufficient data. It is a challenge, but there is also lots of great information out there, that we all can learn, ask and find out – as we do with everything – be more aware and responsible as individuals.
BC: So what does sustainability mean in a company like yours?
JB: At Emeco, sustainability means asking the question, “How can we continue with our practice in the long run with the least environmental impact?” We’re a product maker, so to truly minimize our impact, the focus has to be on what products we make. A product must deserve its place in the world and it must be proven that we can make it with the least environmental impact possible. Only then do we make it.
The solution can’t be to put products out there and then compensate for their impact afterward by buying carbon offset credits. Long answer, but to sum up, we think it would be more transparent and appropriate to talk about impact.
“The more companies that get on board and communicate their carbon footprint in a consistent and transparent way, the better and easier it will be for all of us to make apple for apple comparisons and informed decisions. ”
BC: What’s the one most promising technology or development you think the industry should adopt more broadly?
JB: Carbon footprint calculating! We’ve started working with a carbon calculator to ascribe a numerical environmental impact value to our products. Essentially, we are trying to give a number value that makes sense to all of our products, similar to how we calculate calories and nutrition for food.
Historically, this has been a super time and cost-intensive process, but the technology to accurately calculating this value has become more and more readily available. The more companies that get on board and communicate their carbon footprint in a consistent and transparent way, the better and easier it will be for all of us to make apple for apple comparisons and informed decisions.
