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Brema & Pure Garden Collection: The Great Outdoors

Brema

Germany-based Brema Marketing GmbH & Co designs a wide range of outdoor and garden furniture. Working with OEMs in Vietnam and Malaysia, the company’s teak furniture uses only timber obtained from forests that are controlled by the government and certificated. Currently, the FSC collection accounts for about 70 percent of its total sales.

Besides the responsible use of wood, Brema also saw the need for environmentally efficient packaging. Innovative packaging methods will also help generate interests among wholesalers, retailers and consumers, said the company’s managing director, Thomas Berg.

Indeed so. Featured at the Hong Kong International Furniture Fair in October 2008, the fully knocked-down eight-piece teak furniture set can fit compactly into a carton measuring just 117 x 75 x 84 cm. The condensed packaging makes the set easy to export and store. At the same time, carbon footprints and waste are reduced.

“Wholesalers look for products that are sellable. They need interesting things. With this packaging, wholesalers, retailers and consumers will be attracted to the convenience in storage and transportation of the eight-piece set,” Berg said.

Pure

“Our goal is to sell only FSC products. Unfortunately in some countries, the environmental concern is not a big deal yet,” said Pure Garden Collection sales executive Bas Feenstra. The Netherlands-based company sells “mainly FSC products”. According to Feenstra, besides the Dutch, most countries are not very “advanced” in their environmental needs. This is largely because furniture made using non-FSC is cheaper.

“In Holland, people ask about FSC certification a lot. There is a consciousness about the environment among people there. Some banks even use envelopes made from FSC sources,” he added.

Elsewhere, the company focuses more on design to draw the crowds, before offering them the FSC option. “In Holland, however, FSC is very customer-driven,” Feenstra said. He added that Pure Garden Collection expects ‘green’ demands in Europe to increase but the shift will take some time.