NOMA Circular high end furniture
Basic information
Project Title
Full project title
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Project Description
NOMA's range of furniture is the first comprehensive attempt to design a circular high end environment for the home. A desirable and attractive future tackling environmental challenges.
By sourcing the most promising and beautiful recycled material and trash we have offered the designer a blank sheet to write on.
The result is impressive and recycle tons of wastes.
Geographical Scope
Project Region
Urban or rural issues
Physical or other transformations
EU Programme or fund
Which funds
Description of the project
Summary
NOMA is the new French design brand with eco-design running through its veins and that has made beauty its mantra. It’s what furnishings of the future are all about.
We manufacture beautiful high-quality furniture and everyday objects, conceived by today’s influential designers. The heart of our approach is purely ecological design, from A to Z .
In our first collection, we wanted above all to promote the use of recycled materials through the design. Creation was totally free and the focus on an ecological conception sought to minimize the environmental impact of the products created by our designers.
NOMA means “noble materials.” We intend to change our outlook on recycled materials, which are a veritable treasure-trove for contemporary interiors.
We believe elegance means surrounding oneself with objects that are beautiful, virtuous and responsible. We are convinced that beauty is a powerful vector of change, that today’s economic models must be circular, and that each one of us has the right to know where and how every article has been made.
NOMA values close collaboration with designers to overcome the many eco -conception challenges it set for itself.
They stood up for this first collection:
Martino Gamper, A+A Cooren, Charlotte Juillard, Studio Jean-Marc Gady, Sam Baron et RDAI.
Key objectives for sustainability
A POSITIVE REACTION...
The first thing is that we are very aware of the environmental emergency, it is obvious to us. Faced with this urgency, what is important for us is to create a POSITIVE REACTION, that is why and in this spirit that we have created NOMA : a POSITIVE REACTION on the furniture market.
The second thing is to decide on the answers we would give: do we design and produce “another” chair ? what is the purpose ?
After some discussions, we decided our furniture should be beautiful (of course every one will have a say), durable, and would be only the “current life” of the materials we use: we would use as much existing/recycled material as possible, and that our furniture could be considered in some years (as late as possible) as raw material for something else.
So we create high-end furniture, made in France and made from more than 80% recycled materials.
We focus on eco-conception. This means we take into account the impact of the whole life cycle at the very first stage of the design : how will we use our products for and how can we reduce the environmental impact through the whole life.
Our approach penetrates the entire life-cycle : from conception to production, distribution, use – and re-use! – as their end-of-life.This means long lasting products (they will have a long life and they need to be “loved" for a long time).
All the material we use for our products are recycled (and of course, most of them are already recyclable).
On top, we have paid a lot of attention to the way they are assembled so that they can all be easily dismantled and maintained.
This is a must if we want the materials to be recycled. For instance, the armchair LAIME is assembled without any screw or glue. Whenever you need to maintain it, or at the very end of its life, you can very quickly and easily separate all the materials.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
We want to change the outlook on waste / recycled materials. We are pioneer on this.
In our mission we associate high quality with recycled materials, two concepts that are still often seen as opposites. In fact, recycled materials are commonly associated with poorly-made DIYs, hence low quality.
We would rather focus on a more positive side. We have been through an intense sourcing phase, and we found beautiful materials. These are the ones we have shared with the designers.
These are the most NOble MAterials. They do not look like anything we know and have their own identity. And this opens a new range of possibilities for designers.
We create what we call a BEAUTIFUL DESIGN. As a Beautiful design is for us a/the vector of change, a driving force.
But for NOMA, a BEAUTIFUL DESIGN is not only based on esthetic, it is :
1. Exceptional materials: exceptional because recycled and recyclable (we are part of a circular approach)
2. Usefull furniture : the function comes first, this is part of our vision of a beautiful furniture
3. Comfort : zero compromise on comfort and quality
4. Attention to detail : it's our training, our experience, our obsession, it's part of our vision of beauty
5. It's people and talent : at the heart of our approach, we collaborate with talented designers and talented producers, it's a great pleasure and a great wealth for us.
Above all, NOMA is a human adventure based on exchange and trust.
We have collaborated with the most talented European designers like Sam Baron (FR) , Martino Gamper (IT) and Alberto Marcos (SP)
This is our response (our part of the work) to begin to give meaning to our consumption: simple, sustainable, an optimistic response. It can help people to feel responsible, to ask themselves questions. Our POSITIVE REACTION must lead to other POSITIVE REACTIONS.
We no longer want to use design as an adjective, but to make people understand that design is a lever for positive change.
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Key objectives for inclusion
Local production and inclusion
We work essentially with local producers , more than 70% of our production is in France and so local.
We collaborate now with contractors (Atelier Emmaus for example) who are workshops who helps people that need to be re-inserted/helped in a professional process.
We push more and more these collaborations.
Certification
We are also B Corp pending certified and we will be Bcorp certified in 2022 (the certification is under progress)
We have the status of "Entreprise à mission" which indicate in our status our purpose and our mission
Purpose:
Use design to inspire and encourage sustainable behavior (eco-responsible and social)
NOMA Editions also intends to generate a positive and significant social, societal and environmental impact in the exercise of its activities.
Mission:
Edit responsible furniture and objects:
Support designers and manufacturers towards eco- responsible design and production.
Our Commitments:
1- Design the best products with the lowest possible environmental impact
2- Be a transparent company that is committed to a process of continuous improvement in its operations
3- positively influence all stakeholders
Training
We train all our designers on eco design as we want them to get the good reaction and so get the knowledge on environmental impact when they start designing for us
We have also trained some of our retailers in order for them to explain to the final customers what is an eco design etc...
Public participation
Since 2020 we have participated to
- 2 webinars
- 7 public conferences
- 2 school classes
City Engagement : Environmental display
We are part of the group of furniture company (4 brands) that are the reference for the future regulation of environmental display on products in France. (in collaboration with l'ADEME)
We have also in free public access our product life cycle analysis (in english EPD) and our Mission report 2021 (In French)
Results in relation to category
Our products simply don’t look recycled - you’d never guess that :
83% recycled materials use in our collections / 100% recyclable
70 % produced in France (so locally)
100% life cycle analysis on the collections
2T of wastes recycled in 2021
Our ART 77.5 (77,5% recycled materials) armchair, for example, is made of a plastic shell that contains 100% yoghurt pot waste, but also recycled steel, recycled foam, recycled wood and recycled plastic fabrics.
Our first collection is designed by international talented designers like Charlotte Juillard, Sam Baron, Martino Gamper, RDAI or A+A Coreen.
We are using more than 83% of recycled materials on our first collection. We make for every products a life cycle analysis with an eco design neutral company in Paris.
We measure all our impacts during the design and we improve the design and processes in order to reduce as max as possible our impacts.
There is indeed a lot to be done. We try to remain focused on our mission
We have several goals we want to pursue :
Working on decreasing the impacts of our existing products by improving our designs, process, material selection, partners education, ...
Developing a full range of furniture (we still miss quite some archetypes)
On a different direction, we are putting quite some efforts in making sure our products will be recycled. One of the drivers is for instance the ability to disassemble, another one is to ensure the information (about the exact composition of the materials) will always be VERY easily available.
How Citizens benefit
It is important to share what we do
We have developed all our collections in partnership with the designers / contractors / producers and eco design consultant company who has done all our life cycle analysis, since the beginning of NOMA. It is a team building process. We listen to all partners and we improve our collection accordingly.
We have also asked citizens to answer questions (on use, practicality, comfort, etc...) before developing a new product in order to take into account their needs.
It is strong benefits for us, as we are able to anticipate issues and so propose a long life to our products. We are able to propose a timeless design and not a "fashion" design which is the opposite of our values.
We are also working with the ADEME (french public agency for the ecological transition) in France who is helping us in developing new products based on trashes.
We believe and we want to show that it is possible to consume better and not necessary consume less.
Beauty is the best vector of change and so by producing timeless and high quality products we show that you could get durable, a nice product withfor a long time !
Physical or other transformations
Innovative character
Being a pioneer in the high end furniture industry
An American Indian legend recounts how during a forest fire, a tiny hummingbird carried water droplets in its beak to try to extinguish the flames. The other animals all remained powerless as the fire continued to rage. One of them said to the hummingbird: you’ll never manage to put out the fire with your tiny droplets of water! The hummingbird replied: I know, but I’m doing what I can.
The other animals are our competitors and we are the hummingbird.
It is this intention that inspired us to set up NOMA Editions back in 2020.
The planet’s burning, and on an individual level, no-one really knows what to do about it. But if everyone were to do their bit...
NOMA is the first high end and fully responsible furniture company. we do not have any real competitors (in our market) that take into account all the sustainability issues at the heart of their development.
We want to change the outlook on waste / recycled materials, as beauty is the most powerful catalyst for change.
This is completely new and we are the first one to propose theses solutions with a full circular process at the heart of our development.
Learning transferred to other parties
Being transparent
the first learning is to understand that people wants transparency in what we do, and so have a free access to all our processes / materials used etc...
The value of this is to avoid greenwashing which is our enemy, not only for NOMA but for all the actors of circular economy.
So it is very powerful and mandatory to explain and share what we do and how we do it.
We share a lot of infirmations with other companies, we try to explain what we do and where we have issues.
We are stronger together, if we want to have a "positive" impact we have to do it together, and not only be the hummingbird of the story.
We have won a very difficult tender process in order to install furniture in the Paris 2024 olympic games headquarters; We won it because we created a group of responsible furniture suppliers from access prices chairs to high end sofa, all based on a circular economy.
As already explained we are part of a group of furniture companies (4 brands) that are the reference for the future regulation of environmental display on products in France. (in collaboration with l'ADEME). We share our life cycle analysis and we want them to be challenged in order to progress on an universal tag system with clear informations for the customers.
At the end we need to help the customer to choose the "good" product, and so you have to do it with clear answers.
We believe that every kind of products category could do the same as NOMA , this is possible !
Merci
Bruce and Guillaume Noma, Co founders
