Altura crafts and manufacturers products with extreme care and an utmost concern for protecting the environment. Our primary source of wood is drawn from domestic hardwoods, managed in our own American forests. Here are some steps we have taken towards sustainability.

Our manufacturing process:
• Many of our hardwoods are SFI and FSC certified, and our veneers are FSC-CW.

• Altura’s Duette Table and companion pieces feature the use of Oregon and other Western Walnut slabs. Using this magnificent indigenous wood keeps an extremely small carbon footprint.

•Substrate material for veneering is made from recycled wood fibers; most of our panel products are NAUF (No Added Urea Formaldehyde).

• Glues and finishes are low HAPS or HAPS free (Hazardous Air Pollutants), specially formulated for safe use and environmental friendliness.

Our building and people:
• 40% of Altura’s staff ride bicycles, walk, carpool or take public transportation to work.

• Our Commuter Rewards program grants cash rewards for employees who choose to participate.

• We craft and manufacture our furniture in a fully insulated late model building. Skylights, which provide natural light, are combined with energy efficient T-12 fluorescent lighting and a 10 Kilowatt solar panel array that provides 20% of our annual power needs.

• Our company only spends 1% of our annual costs on utility bills, which include water use and waste removal. Rain water is disposed of on site, in a dry well.

• Our company produces just one 90-gallon container of waste each week.

Our commitment to reuse and recycle:
• A local plant processes Altura’s wood waste into compost. We recycle all paper, metal and glass waste, including plastic bags and wrapping material, at local recycling facility.

• We organize and store all boxes and shipping materials from other deliveries for reuse.

• We separate and store all solid wood cut offs in specie-specific bins, to consider for use in future projects. Our shop has adopted a size chain sequence plan for continually using scrap for smaller parts until it is too small for use. We use short, thick cut offs, for example, to make furniture feet. Other small scraps will become corner blocks for chairs.

• Altura donates small wood scraps that have no use as furniture parts to various local elementary schools for art projects.

• We collect larger unusable wood scraps in special bins and burn them for fuel in EPA certified wood stoves.

• A few of our latest programs include donating sandpaper and other materials to SCRAP: a local nonprofit that sells materials for reuse.