When Ewelina Pankowska was attending OCAD University in Toronto nearly a decade ago, one thing continually troubled her on her daily commute: garbage. Each day as she walked to her classes, she found herself constantly stumbling over household waste on the curb.
The streets or the city were lined with it. Discarded items, set out and forgotten, littered the sidewalk, destined for the landfill. Ewelina especially noticed the furniture. An art student studying furniture design herself, she couldn’t help but think about how wasteful it was to see so many chairs, tables, and sofas being thrown away.
She found herself puzzling over the same questions, day after day. Why is there so much furniture waste? Why was it ending up on the curb? Why wasn’t today’s furniture lasting longer?
“It got right into my core,” Ewelina tells us. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it. And it became—almost instantly—my mission. How do I get rid of this problem?”
When she graduated, Ewelina began experimenting with ideas for better, more sustainable furniture design, drawing inspiration from what she’d observed on the sidewalks of Toronto. She knew that people were throwing out their furniture because it was poor quality. It wasn’t built to last, but it was all they could afford.
To her, the solution seemed clear. She needed to design sustainable furniture that was both high quality and affordable, providing the consumer with another, better option.
Ewelina began researching renewable materials, and quickly landed on bamboo. While most of us think of it as a type of wood, Ewelina is swift to clarify that in fact, it’s classified as a grass. Fast growing, pliable, and durable, bamboo is a dream material for an ambitious furniture designer committed to sustainability.
From those early experiments, Reforest emerged. A small-scale operation based on the shores of Salt Spring Island, Ewelina and her staff take pride in their local, sustainable production processes and their vision of providing affordable, custom-quality furniture that’s accessible to everyone.
The products are sparse and elegant. Drawing inspiration from Japanese and mid-century design, each piece is defined by its distinctive low profile and multi-purpose function. Much like a bamboo shoot, the business has grown rapidly, driven by word-of-mouth.
At Reforest, sustainability is baked into each element of the production process. The company cuts bamboo pieces strategically with a CNC machine to ensure minimal waste. Any scraps that do result are shared with the local community as heating fuel, or transformed into biochar, a useful soil additive.
A central element of Reforest’s sustainability framework is the company’s on-demand production model. By producing products by order only, they not only avoid the expense of storage space, but they make sure to build only what is needed, without generating any excess inventory that might go to waste.
Even the packaging is made-to-order. Ewelina explains that commissioning only the packaging they need is another way to reduce waste. Plus, each box is custom designed to use minimal plastic, and the company offsets its carbon footprint with contributions to tree-planting organizations.
Most critically, Reforest is dedicated to ensuring their furniture never ends up on the curb. Not only are the products built for durability and longevity, but each comes with a lifetime warranty. Every piece, no matter how long ago it was purchased, can be sent back to the Reforest team for replacement. Any damaged pieces that are replaced aren’t thrown away; they are either repurposed into new furniture, or turned into biochar to be used for—what else? —growing more bamboo. In the coming years the company also plans to roll out a repair program, which will allow customers to send in their Reforest pieces to be mended if necessary.
What’s the secret to building a company with circularity so embedded in its DNA? Ewelina says it’s all about the people.
“Everyone believes in what we’re doing and is excited about the vision,” she explains.
When she spoke to us from her home on Salt Spring Island, Ewelina was eager to share how the company was tackling their next challenge—completing an expansion of their operations without compromising the mission. For the first time, Reforest is investing in marketing campaigns and building out an automated production process. In parallel, they’re honing their zero-waste designs and Reforest’s distinctive circular sales experience.
When it comes to sustainability, no detail is too small. As they expand, the company continues to be rooted in a commitment to their values—local production, quality workmanship, and renewable materials.
For Ewelina, the work has always been personal. She often thinks about the forest where she grew up in Poland. Once a special place to play, forage for mushrooms, and enjoy the magic of nature, it’s now gone forever. When Ewelina returned to visit, she was devastated to learn that a large furniture manufacturer cut it down, harvesting the timber to build the very low-quality furniture that Reforest has been aiming to replace.
It’s a tragedy that continues to motivate her not only to build sustainable furniture, but to educate people on the issue of furniture waste.
“There needs to be alternatives, and there haven’t been, really, any alternatives in the furniture industry yet.”
That is, until now. As Reforest continues to scale its circular model, the company represents the first glimpse of something better—a sustainable vision for the future of furniture design.
