Inaspect Sabai Design’s Sustainability Strategy to Constructing a Business

It’s hard to overestimate the importance of furniture in our lives.

We literally live our lives on furniture, but are often unaware of the impact our chosen furniture has on the planet in terms of chemicals, greenhouse gases and material waste.

Phantila Phataraprasit learned about sustainability early in life and wanted to build a sustainable brand that she would be proud to shop with Sabai design, a sustainable furniture company.

With insights from Buffer’s Small Business, Big Lessons Podcast Episode Seven, and the accompanying unpublished interview, Phantila shared how Sabai got started, what she and her team are doing to incorporate sustainability into every business practice, and how she builds trust in the Sabai community.

Phantila Phataraprasit, co-founder of Sabai Design

Start sustainably

Phantila had a unique experience that drove her towards sustainability: she lived in an eco-lodge that her parents founded and operated in Thailand.

This experience showed her how important sustainability is not only for business, but also for maintaining the natural beauty of our world. As a result, Phantila often says that she is ready to put sustainability above everything, ready to pay more and even forego aesthetic taste in the name of sustainability.

However, this approach was no longer sufficient. She valued sustainability, but also wanted to live the life of her choice, not dictated by the small range of “sustainable” items. One area in particular stood out from both a sustainability and a design perspective: furniture.

“Not only do tons of valuable resources go into the manufacture of these products, but every year over nine million tons of furniture waste ends up in landfills,” says Phantila. “At the same time, many furniture products contain toxic materials and chemicals that outgas and get into our bloodstream and are also dangerous for people in general.”

As an entrepreneur at heart, Phantila wanted to start a sustainable furniture company, not only to solve her own problem, but also to make a more sustainable life easier for others. However, she knew that she didn’t have to focus solely on material sustainability.

“The company’s whole mission is to think about sustainability as fully as possible,” said Phantila.

Specifically, she was the co-founder of Sabai Design with four main objectives:

Affordability: Sustainability was often used as a reason to charge higher prices, but Phantila wanted to build a business where items were fair priced and affordable.

Convenience: Sustainability shouldn’t come at the expense of convenience, so the team worked to make sure their products are easy to buy and obtain.

Esthetic: Products should have a clear aesthetic that appeals to people rather than using sustainability to justify limited aesthetics.

sustainability: Not just sustainability in the product itself, but in the entire business and product life cycle.

“We found that for most people sustainability doesn’t matter if the pieces or products aren’t aesthetic, affordable and practical,” said Phantila. “And so we realized that you can’t really ask people to sacrifice these things if you really want to make a difference.”

Anchoring sustainability in every business practice

When Phantila built Sabai Design, she consciously thought about its four pillars: affordability, comfort, aesthetics and sustainability. In particular, ensure that the entire company acts in accordance with these pillars, rather than just using sustainability in product development.

Throughout Sabai’s company, Phantila and the team thought about embedding sustainability.

draft: Each product has a modular structure. That is, if something breaks or needs to be replaced, it can be done without having to throw the whole thing away or replace it.

shipping: The company is trying to minimize the transportation costs involved in sourcing and delivering its products, thereby reducing the greenhouse gases emitted by business growth.

End of product life: Sabai not only manages its own buy-back and second-hand sales, but also donates products that are no longer needed after three months.

“We definitely carry out regular audits or analyzes of our products to ensure that we don’t miss any areas, to limit the impact of our products or to integrate new, innovative materials into our products. Said Phantila.

Fortunately, this mentality is not only reserved for Sabai. Other brands like Paynter Jacket Co Also think consciously about waste and sustainability and be innovative. In Paynter’s case, the company only releases its jackets four times a year. For Sabai, sustainable growth begins with listening carefully to customers. After all, Phantila explained, making things that people don’t want would only create more waste.

“When it comes to product design, we do a lot of polls and surveys to make sure we’re designing and making products that people really want because at the end of the day, when we’re making things that people don’t want to make, that’s up other way waste, ”said Phantila.

Transparency creates trust and business growth

After building Sabai for years, Phantila is well aware that sustainability is not a big bang. They do things wrong as she has done several times. But the key to continuing the journey, said Phantila, is honesty and transparency.

She worries when she hears about companies that are “sustainable” in the market because some part of their business is a little greener than the norm. For them, sustainable building also means sharing what you do with your community. This is a great community building tool at the end of the day, but Phantila said it’s also about education – she doesn’t assume that people know about sustainability in whole business models so she uses Sabai as a working example of how the process is looks like.

When Sabai misses the mark, Phantila is also honest with her community. While this may be the wrong way to start a business, Phantila said it instills a lot of trust and compassion with customers, which means they are more forgiving and leave room for the company to get back on track.

“The transparency we have with our customers definitely creates a lot of trust because they understand that we are doing things that are new, that there is not necessarily a roadmap for them, and that we are trying to make things better of our products, ”said Phantila. “And that creates so much benevolence in our community and gives us a lot of space to be honest with them about the things we try and the things we try.”