Benefit Statement
31/12/2023
Our mission is to safeguard forests, eliminate global furniture waste, and provide affordable solutions by offering custom quality furniture for everyone.
The overarching problem in the furniture industry is fast furniture. Currently furniture lasts on average only 7-20 years. For perspective, IKEA’s 44 billion worth of furniture will be in the landfill in 7 years!
Like fast fashion, fast furniture is pre-designed (no customization), mass produced (pre-made then sold), low quality (short term profit/short life), and designed for landfill (no service after sale). To add, fast furniture contributes to 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions through deforestation & landfill! It also contributes to 50,000+ species extinctions each year, planet soil loss (50% loss in 150 years), and countless more factors.
Fortunately, we found a way to increase industry profits, and end the cycle of furniture ending up in landfills. Our solution is to switch the industry from cheap mass production (fast furniture), to quality mass customization (enabling a circular economy). We do this using only 5 founding elements:
- Quality joinery hardware (In-house design)
- Quality sheet material (Bamboo+)
- Design for Assembly (Ship small packages)
- 1 Machine Process (AI driven automation)
- Part Tracking Technology (IP)
These foundations enable Reforest Furniture to be:
- Customized (infinite customization forever). Consumers design their own furniture parts within our boundaries, and continuously update and replace them.
- Made-to-Order (2-3 days order fulfillment). Typical customization industry window is 2-3 months. This on-demand model also allows for service accessibility as there is only one step between manufacturer and consumer.
- High Quality (82% lower in comparable products). We build lifetime customers and profit from furniture longevity.
- Serviceable (Repair, Return, Redesign, Trade). Our ‘Circular Economy Model’ extends furniture life through services. Non-repairable parts are turned into biochar (a soil enhancer) to avoid landfill.
Unfortunately, quality furniture is only accessible to 4% of consumers. Yet, 98% of consumers have quality as their top decision making attribute! Also, customization is a priority for 46% of consumers. Yet, only 6% of global furniture is customizable!
Of the $557 Billion Global Furniture Market, 96% is catering to budget consumers, where their access is limited to low quality pre-made furniture. The remaining 4% are luxury consumers, the only consumer audience that has access to high quality and customizable furniture. Even Ikea, Wayfair and Leons, the top players, are small in the budget space and fail to address consumer desires for quality and customization. We plan to enter the budget space by offering what the big guys are not, affordable, high quality and custom furniture.
To lower our prices and increase our profits we are developing an on-demand Automated Retail & Manufacturing (ARM) Hub. The ARM hub is only 6000 sq ft, about the size of Mcdonalds, with AI driven automation. For perspective, a standard furniture operation is 190,000 square feet. Our operation is 96% smaller but mighty with a high output through Compact Automation. On top of that, we reduce our costs through a 90% smaller showroom that is virtual, through a 75% smaller warehouse since our furniture finds its home in only 2-3 days, and through an 85% simpler process that is driven by Automation. And of course it would not be fair to compare the 2 operations at this scale, so we use a comparison based on ‘revenue per square foot’.
We have modelled our foundations in only 250 sq ft - a 1 car garage with huge success! Our current operation is producing 30% more revenue per sq. ft. than industry standard and we are only at 6% automation. We plan to increase our revenue per sq ft to 116% more than industry standard once our hub reaches 80% automation - that is a 4x revenue increase per square foot compared to standard.
Most of our traction to date has been accomplished through manual production, 6% automation and only about 20% operating capacity. A majority of our efforts this past year have gone towards R&D. Our next step for 2024 is to reach maximum capacity through the launch of our very first marketing campaign with active ad spend. We will also be increasing automation in our packaging segment through a collaboration with Packsize for an overall Automation increase of 4%. By the end of 2026 we plan to achieve 30% automation and have 2 completed ARM Hubs.
Our successful operations will be determined by a successful business model. Due to the complexity of reinventing all aspects of the furniture industry, Reforest in its entirety is one package that can not be taken apart. The technology we are developing to support our systems and business model will not work without the entire package, and therefore it would be futile to sell our technology to the furniture industry unless they also adapt our processes and model. The application of our technology will however be valuable within other industries. Our model hence is a B2C model supported by B2B software licensing (IP). Our in-house technology developments (IP) include: Part Tracking, Hub Communication, and Dynamic Pricing. Our full business model will not be disclosed publicly.
Now to get there, we are curating industry to eliminate in-house development for each of our segments. We are currently partnered with UBC to develop an intelligent decision support system for a circular economy, and we are receiving funding from Canada’s Government program IRAP to curate our partnerships for each segment. We are repurposing existing on-demand advancements and automations in other industries and applying them to each of our segments. Our intellectual property, systems and vision become the glue that hold this network together.
Join us on the journey to eliminate furniture going to the landfill, to preserve our forests, and offer equal opportunity for all consumers in the ownership of quality custom furniture.