JYSK supports FSC Design Award 2018
Date:
Author: Benedicte Loft Mortensen, Communications & CSR Consultant
Category: Awards , Sustainability
JYSK’s Range & Design Manager participated when the winner of FSC Design Award was announced in Denmark’s capital city.
On a clear November morning, Rikke Blæsild, Range & Design Manager, heads off to this year’s FSC Design Award 2018 of which JYSK is one of the main sponsors.
For the 13th time, FSC Denmark is hosting the competition with the purpose to put focus on sustainability in the production of design by challenging Danish design and architecture students to combine sustainability and good design in wood.
“It is important for us to participate in this, because FSC is a focus area in JYSK. As a designer myself, I am also very curious to see what the young designers have come up with and how they have solved the task,” says Rikke Blæsild, Range & Design Manager in JYSK.
Ida Rehnström from FSC Denmark works with sustainability every day in her job, and she clearly sees the value of the competition.
“FSC Design Award is our way of creating a dialogue with the future designers. Through the competition, we are able to work the sustainable values into the core of what the young designers do best – creating innovative solutions for the future,” says Ida Rehnström.
Impressed with designs
The award show takes place in the capital of Denmark, Copenhagen, in a beautiful building with a big glass front with a view of the water, creating a nice frame for the total of 35 unique wooden designs. In the room, the young designers are ready to explain and show every detail in their creations to the curious visitors.
JYSK’s Range & Design Manager is impressed by the designers.
“They are really very talented and they have created some beautiful products that are functional at the same time. I think they have interpreted and solved the task very well,” says Rikke.
And the winner is…
The award show begins and the tension increases in the room among the participants. One by one, the selected 10 best designers are called onto the stage. Then, the winner of FSC Design Award 2018 is announced: Anna Ohmsen and Emma Bukhave Vidarsson. Besides the main prize, Anna and Emma also win another prize at the award show.
“It is an overwhelming feeling to win; we did not except to win any prizes today. We are very happy and thankful,” say the winners.
A trip to Latvia
The prize this year is a trip to Latvia, where the winners will get the opportunity to develop their design further in cooperation with a furniture manufacturer and visit FSC forests. Historically, there has been a great focus on sustainability in relation to tropical rainforests and previously the prize has often been a trip to rainforest areas in for example southeast Asia and Africa. The fact that the trip this year goes to Latvia is based on thorough considerations.
“We would like to use this year’s trip to show why FSC also is highly relevant in a European context. Both when speaking of social conditions, environmental considerations, wildlife and climate. At the same time, much of the design industry is founded in European wood, and therefore we would like to put focus on sustainability here,” says Ida Rehnström from FSC Denmark.
JYSK has supported the FSC Design Award for a number of years to help put focus on sustainability and spread the knowledge of the FSC brand. In JYSK, many items are made of FSC-labelled wood, and a large part of these are produced in Central and Eastern Europe.
WHAT DOES FSC MEAN?
FSC stands for Forest Stewardship Council and means that a tree is sourced from sustainable forests, where no more wood is felled than the forest can reproduce. FSC is much more than that. It is also about environmental, social and economic responsibility:
- FSC sets strict requirements for the use of pesticides and chemicals and ensures that the aquatic environment is protected.
- FSC poses a number of social requirements that make local areas benefit from the income from the forest.
- FSC ensures that native peoples and locals are guaranteed the right to use the forest.
- Parts of FSC forests are completely protected, and areas of endangered animals and plants are preserved.
- Forestry workers in FSC forests are ensured proper conditions, including education, safety equipment and fair pay.
- The FSC brand can be placed on wood from all over the world - from the tropical rainforests to the Siberian needle forests.
- Worldwide, 200,634,032 hectares of forest are FSC certified (November 2018).
Source: FSC Denmark / FSC International
