Innovation & Technology

Circular Homeware Startup to Disrupt Global Furniture Industry with Landfill-to-Lifestyle Model

A pioneering new sustainable homeware and accessories brand has emerged on the market and is ready to radically transform the way furniture is made forever. Materials sourcing is where digital furniture startup Pentatonic sets itself apart from its industry counterparts, with its line of contemporary designer homeware fabricated entirely from post-consumer waste.

By Sustainable Brands | Published 7 years ago | About a 3 minute read

Image: Pentatonic

A pioneering new sustainable homeware and accessories brand has emerged on the market and is ready to radically transform the way furniture is made forever. Materials sourcing is where digital furniture startup Pentatonic sets itself apart from its industry counterparts, with its line of contemporary designer homeware fabricated entirely from post-consumer waste.

The concept — led by Jamie Hall, former Global GM of NikeLab at Nike and head of marketing at Levi’s UK; and Johann Boedecker, former GM of Corporate Business of Miniwiz — has already garnered significant attention and attracted €4,700,000 in its first round of funding. The brand plans to launch its first collection of customizable, flat-packaged furniture during this year’s London Design Festival.

Unlike many other offerings on the market, Pentatonic’s products are fully recyclable and offer a buy-back guarantee, thereby establishing a circular model in which consumers play both the part of customer and supplier. Once recovered, the raw materials are added back into the production loop, recycled, recrafted and resold.

Circularity is embedded into the design of each and every Pentatonic piece — product components aid in the construction of each piece, eliminating the need for complicated assembly processes and chemical-laden glues and resins, while also minimizing unnecessary waste. What's more, post-consumer materials are matched to products based on their unique properties and application possibilities.

“Our non-negotiable commitment to the consumer is that we make our products using single materials. That means no toxic additives and no hybridized materials which are prohibitive of recyclability. As such, this represents a radical departure from the traditional design, manufacturing and consumer service models in the homeware and accessories industry,” Boedecker said.

“This enables us to simply recycle our products at the end of life and thus brings our consumer into our supply chain. This inclusivity and incentivizing will deliver an almost zero waste of our products post-use.”

While many designers and industry giants — IKEA being a notable exception — are just starting to toy with the idea of circularity and responsible sourcing, Pentatonic is blazing new trails with its sustainability-focused business model — a move that could position them far ahead of competitors in a rapidly changing market.

As Hall and Boedecker told Dezeen: “Recycling and circular manufacturing has evolved rapidly in recent years and we are now at a point where it can offer not just comparable, but superior performance from traditional methodologies."