EarthX Website: https://earthxmedia.com/
Red Egg Furniture is an accent furniture company, best known for crafting stunning furnishings inspired by vintage and antique Chinese pieces imported and upcycled by founder, Carol Gregg.
About Chez Laurence:
Designer Laurence Carr meets manufacturers and brands who are employing circular, regenerative, and sustainable practices. See how they're seeking to change the end-of-life concept with eco-friendly techniques.
EarthX
Love Our Planet.
The Official Network of Earth Day.
About Us:
At EarthX, we believe our planet is a pretty special place. The people, landscapes, and critters are likely unique to the entire universe, so we consider ourselves lucky to be here. We are committed to protecting the environment by inspiring conservation and sustainability, and our programming along with our range of expert hosts support this mission. We’re glad you’re with us.
EarthX is a media company dedicated to inspiring people to care about the planet. We take an omni channel approach to reach audiences of every age through its robust 24/7 linear channel distributed across cable and FAST outlets, along with dynamic, solution oriented short form content on social and digital platforms. EarthX is home to original series, documentaries and snackable content that offer sustainable solutions to environmental challenges. EarthX is the only network that delivers entertaining and inspiring topics that impact and inspire our lives on climate and sustainability.
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Red Egg Furniture is an accent furniture company, best known for crafting stunning furnishings inspired by vintage and antique Chinese pieces imported and upcycled by founder, Carol Gregg.
About Chez Laurence:
Designer Laurence Carr meets manufacturers and brands who are employing circular, regenerative, and sustainable practices. See how they're seeking to change the end-of-life concept with eco-friendly techniques.
EarthX
Love Our Planet.
The Official Network of Earth Day.
About Us:
At EarthX, we believe our planet is a pretty special place. The people, landscapes, and critters are likely unique to the entire universe, so we consider ourselves lucky to be here. We are committed to protecting the environment by inspiring conservation and sustainability, and our programming along with our range of expert hosts support this mission. We’re glad you’re with us.
EarthX is a media company dedicated to inspiring people to care about the planet. We take an omni channel approach to reach audiences of every age through its robust 24/7 linear channel distributed across cable and FAST outlets, along with dynamic, solution oriented short form content on social and digital platforms. EarthX is home to original series, documentaries and snackable content that offer sustainable solutions to environmental challenges. EarthX is the only network that delivers entertaining and inspiring topics that impact and inspire our lives on climate and sustainability.
EarthX Website: https://earthxmedia.com/
Follow Us:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/earthxmedia/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/earthxmedia
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EarthXMedia/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@earthxmedia
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EarthXMedia
How to watch:
United States:
- Spectrum
- AT&T U-verse (1267)
- DIRECTV (267)
- Philo
- FuboTV
- Plex
- Fire TV
#EarthDay #Environment #Sustainability #Ecofriendly #Conservation #EarthX
Category
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TVTranscript
00:00🎵
00:29Red Egg Furniture is a High Point, North Carolina-based,
00:33to the trade, accent furniture company, best known for crafting stunning furnishings
00:39inspired by the vintage and antique Chinese pieces that Carol Gregg, Red Egg's founder,
00:46used to import and upcycle. Their made-to-order products feature wood and other materials
00:52local to North Carolina and rattan, an extremely ecological and renewable material from the
00:59Philippines. Let's meet Carol now and learn more about how Red Egg was created and the circular
01:06methods that they embraced in their practices. Hello Carol, welcome to our series on circular
01:12design. Thank you for having me, it's great to be here. Tell me about yourself, your company,
01:18and your products. My name is Carol Gregg, I am the founder, owner, and chief hen of Red Egg.
01:25Red Egg is a to-the-trade accent furniture company based in High Point, North Carolina.
01:32We've been around since 1997 and we are proud members of the Sustainable Furnishings Council.
01:40So what inspired you to get into the furnishings industry? I was a textile designer by trade,
01:46traveling a lot in Asia. I have a great love of the Asian aesthetic in textiles
01:54and on one of those trips I happened to be walking down a street in Hong Kong that was just filled
02:02with beautiful vintage and antique stores. I went into one of these stores and fell in love with
02:10the very ornate Chinese furniture that I was seeing and I asked the owner if he had more and
02:17soon I was in China digging through warehouses picking vintage, antique used furniture
02:26and thinking about a new business of bringing that furniture to the U.S. market and sharing
02:34that aesthetic with a whole new audience. Now you were a pioneer in introducing upcycling
02:41concepts with your business. How did that evolve? So at that point I was based in
02:47northern California and didn't want to do a traditional retail store full of Chinese
02:53antique furniture since San Francisco did have a bit of that going on at the time.
03:00I decided I would bring our furniture to the trade show wholesale market
03:08and sell to retailers and designers and let them resell the product or reimagine the product.
03:18That kind of seemed like a gamble at the time but big department stores and retailers started coming
03:24to me looking for more of my product and wanting me to take those vintage pieces and
03:33make new ones for them and make collections for them. So I went from kind of a recycling
03:41furniture business to an upcycling furniture business where I would go find vintage pieces
03:50of a style and repaint them in new fun fresh colors or make alterations to them like taking
04:00a traditional Chinese wardrobe piece and turning it into a modern television cabinet for the U.S.
04:07market. As that business evolved it became very apparent to me that it was difficult to maintain
04:16consistency and quality by doing it that way and I had more demand for new made furniture so I
04:25found myself manufacturing furniture in China. And how did your thinking shift regarding your
04:32sustainability practices? I was on an airplane coming back from China and realized that there
04:42were containers of wood going from Russia and France and the U.S. to China to make the furniture
04:54that I was then shipping back to the United States to sell to these big department stores so that
05:02they could ship it out to their customers all over the country. Suddenly to me that was so unsustainable
05:09that was just not a business I could go forward with. When I moved my wood
05:16furniture production to North Carolina that was a big shift but making furniture
05:24locally with locally sourced wood seemed like a really smart thing to do both sustainably
05:33and for creating a more balanced lifestyle. I was at a trade show in North Carolina
05:41and I actually met Susan Inglis who is the head of the Sustainable Furnishings Council and
05:49she told me what I was doing was a sustainable practice which I knew intuitively but I
05:57hadn't really thought about it. She told me all about the Sustainable Furnishings Council and
06:03how I could be a part of that. You were really ahead of your time in changing your business model.
06:09Your Double Happiness collection is well known throughout the industry. What materials do you
06:14use and where are they sourced? We work with local craftspeople in North Carolina for all of our
06:21wood furniture and we make every piece to order from locally sourced materials. We use locally
06:30sourced maple for our Double Happiness collection. We also use some reclaimed wood. One of our
06:38favorite locally made pieces is a hanging porch bed and the one that's been on our porch for
06:48about eight years now is made from a fallen white oak from our local region. We work with one
06:57particular maker who loves to work with fallen trees and create beautiful live edge shelving and
07:04natural pieces from that reclaimed wood so that that's another way that we are working with a
07:12locally sustainable source. We have a collection of furniture handcrafted from Rattan out of the
07:20Philippines and Rattan is a rapidly renewable resource in the Philippines. Basically it's a
07:27vine that grows in the jungles of Southeast Asia. It is strong, it is flexible, it is durable and in the
07:37hands of talented craftspeople it makes beautiful furniture. So we're very excited that we can do
07:44that as well. I'm so happy to hear you're using Rattan. It is one of the most sustainable materials
07:51and a renewable material. Tell us about waste reduction and other upcycling practices for your
07:57business. We're very much a small company and we work in kind of a cottage industry mode where
08:07we are making furniture to order. So we're making small batch, we're making piece by piece, we're
08:13customizing and in doing so we're trying to not create waste to start with. Other small businesses
08:24can take that model and actually make furniture custom to order and give people
08:33exactly what they want. So how does Red Egg measure its impact? It kind of goes back to
08:40making furniture to order and not making waste, making furniture locally, working with local
08:46materials. We also like to hear stories from our customers that the product we make is not
08:57going into a landfill, it's getting passed on to another generation. I have a story from a client
09:04who has a Rattan chair from Red Egg from 20 years ago and she said it's moved four households with
09:12her because it's one of her favorite pieces of furniture and that to me has impact when
09:17when a product is made to last and does not get thrown away, it gets recycled. And how do you
09:26share your philosophy of sustainability with your community? A couple of things that I love to do.
09:33Number one is to always have interns at Red Egg. It's a great way for me to stay in touch with the
09:39next generation of interior designers and furniture designers and product designers and
09:47for them to learn about sustainable philosophy from Red Egg. I'm always very very aware of what
09:57they're learning in school and how we can improve on that by giving them some real world experience
10:04in what sustainability means. A lot of times they say oh my gosh we love your furniture but it's too
10:12expensive, we can't afford it, we need more affordable furniture, which is great in
10:20concept but they also by the end of the internship learn that maybe it's worth saving
10:29their money to buy a really good piece of furniture that they're going to own for a lifetime
10:34instead of buying on impulse a fashionable or trendy piece of furniture that they're going to
10:41throw in the dumpster in less than a year. So I always teach them don't make landfill. That's kind
10:48of a philosophy here at Red Egg and just because you can design something doesn't mean you should.
10:55Other things I do is the local cottage industry shops that I work with. I'm always trying to
11:01impart some sustainable knowledge to them and sustainable practices that we can do together
11:10because I don't own my manufacturing. I'm working with small shops. I'm working within their
11:17capabilities and so sometimes it's a gradual process but I feel like every step we can take
11:23together towards that end benefits everyone in the long run. So what's the biggest circular
11:30challenge you're facing in your business? Packing materials. That's it. It's really a challenge to
11:38have a piece of furniture that has taken so much time and energy and effort and raw material
11:45to make to have it go into a carton shipped off to a client only to have someone along the way
11:53drop it and break it just seems so incredibly wasteful to me. To combat that you have to
12:01pack things so they're bulletproof and in doing so all of those packing materials become
12:09waste on the other end. So I really hope that someone smarter than me can figure out this
12:17solution and solve this. That's so true. There is a growing number of companies that are addressing
12:24these packaging challenges globally. What other sustainable practices are you hoping to include
12:29in the future? Finishing is is an area of improvement for us. We have been known for our
12:38beautiful lacquered colors that kind of transform a piece of furniture from classic to coastal to
12:48you know whatever style you're looking for just based on putting a new lacquer color
12:55on a traditional shape. Red Egg became known for that and we love that aesthetic but it's
13:03been a challenge to find really sustainable materials to use for our finishing that are also
13:12incredibly durable and will last the lifetime of a piece of furniture which we think that piece of
13:18furniture should last for many years for you and be passed down. So finding that balance is our
13:26challenge and we will continue to look for ways to find more sustainable finishing materials
13:36or practices that we can use on our furnishings. That's so important. Water-based lacquer and
13:44finishes contribute to improve indoor air quality and human health in interiors. Absolutely.
13:51How do you see the furnishings industry evolving in the near future? So I think the pandemic has
13:58taught us all a lot about slowing down, thinking a little more about our purchases, being a little
14:06more conscious about our home environments, taking stock in the pieces of furniture that
14:13have served us well that we love and I'm hopeful that that people will spend a little more time
14:23making conscious decisions about larger purchases like home furnishings and think of them more in
14:30terms of a large purchase that you will love for many, many years and pass on.
14:39We may want some richer experiences coming out of this pandemic and that's one thing that we've
14:46been providing to our trade clients for years now by having our showroom in a historic home
14:54in High Point, North Carolina. I actually live in the home as well. That's the way we
15:02want people to experience Red Egg as a living showroom where on a daily basis, I am sitting
15:10in a chair that we designed and made and eating at a dining table that we designed and made and
15:17throwing dinner parties at said dining table where people are spilling wine on our furniture
15:25and it's really getting used and experienced. Not only does that help us tell our story to
15:33our customers where we can say, hey, our furniture holds up really well with use.
15:40It's not only beautiful, it's functional and you're going to love living with it,
15:45but they get to experience that as well. Where can our audience find you?
15:50So Red Egg is to the trade company. We sell to interior designers and boutique retailers,
15:57but you can always view our product at redegg.com, our website and we also on our website,
16:04it's kind of a cool thing, we have a virtual tour so you can walk through our living showroom even
16:12if you can't physically come to our showroom in High Point, North Carolina, you can walk through
16:17it virtually online. What would you like the Red Egg legacy to be? I want people to find joy in the
16:25pieces of furniture that we make for them. I want them to look at a piece of Red Egg furniture and
16:33have it put a smile on their face and have them think about either the experience of
16:40getting to come to our showroom and see that piece of furniture in person or the story that
16:48I shared with them about how their furniture was made. I think that that gives them some pride in
16:54the furniture and maybe they can share that story too. So I want our furniture to bring people joy
17:02and to have longevity both aesthetically and physically. I want our furniture to be
17:10heirloom quality that gets passed down or can be a piece that you recycle in your own home or in
17:17your many moves. I have a great story, I had a piece of furniture, a piece of actually rattan
17:25furniture from 20 years ago that a designer brought to my attention was on first dibs
17:33which I felt pretty excited about that it had not only longevity but it was it was about to get a
17:41new life as a vintage piece of furniture. That's wonderful to hear Carol and I hope you continue
17:48to spread joy with Red Egg Furniture. Thank you for today, I truly enjoyed our conversation.
17:56Clearly Carol has always been ahead of her time. From naturally seeking out sustainable solutions
18:02to her living showroom in High Point, her visionary mindset is a tremendous asset to
18:08the interiors and furnishings industry. The furniture she manufactures for industry retailers
18:15features sustainably sourced and often renewable materials. It's made one-of-a-kind and locally
18:22to reduce waste and is designed for durability and longevity both aesthetically and functionally
18:30so these heirloom quality pieces can be handed down across generations. When it comes to a
18:37naturally sustainable mindset, Carol Gregg clearly rules the roost.