Christian Rathbone, Inc. is a founding member of the Sustainable Furniture Council. It is in this partnership that I am working to eventually create sustainability guidelines for the hand made, naturally dyed carpet industry. Reasons for creating a product that works with the environment and not against it are becoming painfully obvious. This speaks to the awareness that we are all interconnected in a real way and that there are things more important than producing a product with regard to cost and little else.
Wool and dyestuffs come either from Turkey, where the rugs are made, or the surrounding region. Ingredients used for dyes are derived from various vegetation sources and include things like pomegranate, oak, walnut, madder root, indigo and chamomile. These methods come from an age where there was no such thing as chemical dyes.
   Methods used are completely traditional, resulting in a "modern oriental". Just like their older counterparts, my rugs have a lifespan of 50-70+ years, depending on use. Keeping things simple (wool and vegetale dyes) allows me to offer a sustainable product on the production side, as well as the consumer side.  More and more sustainable products are becoming available thereby offering us all a choice. I hope that in combining graphic design with ancient tradition, the choice of your  next carpet is an easy one.