Minneapolis-based Room & Board has been around for more than 25 years, but it's possible you've never heard of them. With a reputation for very high-quality, sleek furniture made from solid wood, they've also always incorporated principles of sustainability and eco-friendly materials into their designs. This year, the company was approached by Green Depot to help furnish the first building in New York City to be certified by the American Lung Association's Health House Program.

For those of us looking for durable, beautiful furniture, one of Room & Board's most popular lines is the Linear collection, made primarily of solid wood-maple, walnut, or cherry-sustainably harvested in the United States, and recycled steel, manufactured within 100 miles of company's distribution point. Though the wood is not FSC-certified, Room & Board has its own process to ensure that their supplier forests are being managed responsibly, and the resulting product is a durable, safe piece of furniture with an oil-and-wax finish, limiting the risk of VOCs. The collection's been around since 1993, testament to Room & Board's success at designing classic, timeless furniture that is good for the environment, and for your home.

But sustainable products aren't the only reasons to take interest in Room & Board. The company engages in other earth-friendly practices: To reduce the use of paper (and all the wasteful processes that go into its production), for example, Room & Board only prints a single high-quality catalog per year, using vegetable-based ink on post-consumer recycled paper and waste cover stock.

There are no sales at Room & Board-the price you see is the price of that piece of furniture for the entire year-eliminating the need for paper-heavy marketing materials and replacement price tags. Finally, the company has assembled a small employee corps in each of its locations and calls them "green teams," whose primary focus is to assess how Room & Board can educate consumers and make efforts within the community to spread the word of sustainability and ecological awareness. Green team projects have included local cleanup days, adopt-a-river, and a whole day in the company's Minneapolis headquarters, where community members were encouraged to join in a brainstorm session about carpooling, recycling, and other small ways to live a little greener.

Now that's what we like to hear.

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