“Sustainability is particularly important for décor because we interact intimately with our homes daily,” says Sarah Barnard of Sarah Barnard Design. “Sustainable home décor is not only beneficial for larger environmental considerations but to personal health, as natural items are often better for indoor air quality and comfort.” Whether you’re looking to add high drama or a classic touch to your living space, there are plenty of sustainably made and ethically driven home décor brands to choose from. Making our shortlist is a wide range of retailers, including home goods brand The Citizenry, which works with over 3,000 artisan partners from across the world, and Coyuchi, a beloved organic linens company. Read on for the best sustainable home décor retailers. Giving a contemporary spin to traditional styles, the creations are made in small batches with a low carbon footprint and minimal wastage by the retailer. The Citizenry is a Fair Trade brand, meaning it sets high standards for production, ensuring safe working conditions and fair pay. Over 3,000 artisans work with the brand, with over half being female entrepreneurs. You can delve into each product’s unique legacy, a part of which you bring into your home. We also love this independently owned company’s Better To Give program, which donates a portion of each order to nonprofit organizations around the globe. Since the program started in 2001, this has amounted to more than $2.8 million. You can pick up beautiful rocking chairs and side tables from Nicaraguan-based seed-to-seat brand Masaya & Co. They have stunning sisal and sweet grass planters from one of the largest artisans’ employers in Africa, Kazi, and unusual table linen made from post-consumer recycled rubber from Brooklyn-based Slash Objects. What’s more, the company is Climate Neutral certified, which means they offset 100 percent carbon emissions for the entire company. So, you can stock your home with beautiful, hand-crafted home décor, eco-friendly furniture, and plastic-free frills—guilt-free. Based in Portland, Oregon, the woodshop is a certified B Corp committed to sustainable practices. It adheres to rigorous benchmarks of environmental and social accountability, from reusing and recycling scrap lumber to compacting sawdust into briquettes that are donated to the community. Each piece takes around 20-25 weeks to build, but rest assured you receive a piece of craftsmanship that will stand the test of time. The collections are mostly low waste or zero waste, made with natural and sustainable materials (think organic and recycled cotton, jute, palm, and wool). The artisans work using traditional techniques and equipment such as the backstrap loom, pedal loom, and vertical loom, amongst others. In 2021, Minna became a certified B Corp for its positive impact on the environment and the community. Keeping sustainability in mind, Minna places small, frequent orders with artisans, pays an upfront deposit, and lets them set their own wages and schedules. What’s more, the retailer distributes 3 percent of its yearly profit to community-led organizations. In terms of their offerings, here you’ll find unique home décor, such as lusciously scented, hand-poured candles and kantha quilts upcycled from cotton saris and handstitched by artisans in Bangladesh. To understand more about how The Little Market upholds the dignity of artisans while bringing to light social justice and human rights challenges they face, you can peruse their 2021 impact report. The range is available in beautiful earthy shades, thanks to low-impact, nontoxic dyes. Choose among a bevy of textures, such as sateen, percale, flannel, and jersey. You can dive under a buttery soft sateen duvet or sleep cool in crisp percale sheets. Each is tailored beautifully and embellished with tiny details, all for a great price. Goodee works with brands that resonate with its ideals while also offering an option from its own sustainably crafted décor range. Featuring an impressive range of goodies, such as kapok bed mattresses from West Africa and a robust palm hamper from Mexico, you can decorate your home with doodads that spark meaningful conversations while spurring positive action. As the first organic-certified Fair Trade bedding company, Boll & Branch offers a wide array of sheets, bedding, mattresses, and more. The cotton is GOTS-certified, ensuring the organic status of the textile, and the products are also OEKO-TEX certified. Boll & Branch works with family-owned farms and organizations, ensuring transparency in their operations and paying fair wages to the artisanal and farming community. In 2020, they purchased a staggering 5.3 million tons of Fair Trade seed cotton to produce luxurious bedding that’s safe and soft to snuggle up in. Parachute Home has a clean, modern aesthetic, selling everything from bedding and bath goods to furniture and décor. Through working with master artisans, including expert Portuguese craftspeople and a fourth-generation American mattress maker, they’re committed to supporting small and underrepresented communities. Parachute has also recently launched its first GOTS-certified organic cotton collection, a selection of duvets, shams, pillowcases, and more favorites to curl up in. Etsy has set several economic, social, and ecological goals as a part of its impact strategy, such as reducing energy usage by 25 percent by 2025. The company is also taking long strides towards net-zero carbon emissions, offsetting all emissions from shipping and packaging. For more details, you can read their 2021 Annual Report. Each piece is a conversation starter, with detailed descriptions shared about their antecedents. For instance, you can find a side table inspired by the Djembe drum or a flatweave wool rug handcrafted in Egypt. The brand balances commerce with concern, delivering a positive social, environmental, and economic impact. It supports traditional crafts and offers artisans a fair wage and a safe work environment. As one of the founding partners of the Sustainable Furnishings Council (SFC), Cisco Home keeps sustainability in mind in every step of the process—from sourcing FSC-certified wood to working with water-based stains and natural fabrics. The retailer has also introduced Inside Green, a responsible alternative to building furniture from long-lasting, natural, chemical-free, and naturally fire-retardant materials. Another initiative that we love is Coyuchi’s 2nd Home take-back program, which closes the loop on textile creation. You can return frayed linen to be renewed, upcycled, or recycled—giving the material a new lease on life and earning you 15 percent off your next purchase. The brand ethically sources essential products from high-quality vendors, offering affordable goods with consistent quality. You can pick from a selection of household goods, such as serving boards from sustainably grown acacia wood and natural hand-poured soy candles. Plus, for every new order placed, the retailer plants one tree in partnership with the Eden Reforestation Project—over 330,000 trees to date. The retailer’s cotton bedding and towels are certified organic, and more than half of their wooden furniture is sustainably sourced. What’s more, around 60 percent of their products support at least one of their sustainability initiatives. West Elm is armed with a host of certifications, such as GOTS or Organic Content Standard, FSC, GREENGUARD, OEKO-TEX, and others, showing their continuing commitment to ethical designs, sustainable sourcing, and responsible production. You can also choose products per the values that are important to you, so you don’t need to sift through the entire inventory.
Production Methods
The second step is determining where and by whom a piece is made. “A product isn’t sustainable if the environment, workers, and indigenous populations were negatively impacted by its creation,” says Jillian Pritchard Cooke, founder of Wellness Within Your Walls. Look for certifications such as Fair Trade and Climate Neutral to ensure good business practices.
Installation
As tempted as you are to quickly unpack and set up your items, Pritchard Cooke recommends taking it slow—especially for high-density foam in mattresses and upholstered furniture, which might off-gas into your home. “Sustainable décor is less likely to contain harmful chemicals, such as VOCs, that will off-gas in your home, producing contaminated indoor air,” Pritchard Cooke says. “If off-gassing toxins are present, [make] sure the interior environment is properly ventilated.”
Greenwashing
This marketing gimmick misleads customers by making unsubstantiated and insincere green claims without appropriate certifications or documentation to support their sustainability efforts. Pritchard Cooke advises looking beyond buzzwords. “A company can call themselves and their products ‘green,’ but without the third-party certifications to back that up, it’s just an unregulated word,” she says.
Why Trust The Spruce?
Neeti Mehra writes about sustainability for The Spruce. A researcher and consultant, she has edited three magazines during her career, covering a broad range of topics. She is committed to sustainable, slow, and mindful living. Her home is full of vintage heirlooms passed down from her grandparents, plus other knickknacks she picks up from mindful retailers and flea markets. Another tip is to shop directly through artists, whether on their personal website or during an open studio event. “Some artists may already offer or be willing to create prints of their work, which can be a valuable option for beautifying walls on a budget,” Barnard adds. Pritchard Cooke says to keep an eye out for spring and fall events hosted across the U.S. “Those are great times to see new products and get great deals. If your designer shares that [they are] heading to a furniture show, [they] may be offered ‘show specials.’” However, she cautions to be on the lookout for greenwashing and probe into the product’s country of origin, its carbon footprint, and what it is made of before you seal the deal. For this article, Neeti researched the brands available and dived deep into The Spruce’s extensive brand library. To get a complete perspective, she also spoke with experts Sarah Barnard of Sarah Barnard Design and Jillian Pritchard Cooke, founder of Wellness Within Your Walls, to get the lowdown on sustainable décor.
