Sustainability
Ditch furniture waste for good
CANOA is founded on the idea 21st century design must focus on finding a more perfect union between humans and our planet.
Circular from the start

Our business model must not rely on generating new waste to profit.

Our Take
A chair that is used for 5-7 years today, will be with us for the better part of 400 to 600 years as it breaks down into micro-plastics that experts predict will never fully decompose. A 1:100 ratio of useful life to waste. Less than 0.001% of furniture waste is recycled in the US today according to the EPA. We can do better.
Read On
Our Manifesto
Our Approach

We break down our approach into 3 simple pillars: build less, buy better, and waste nothing.

Build less
Design for re-use
Measured through:
  • % new material that can be reused without deconstruction
  • CO2 equivalence of new goods deployed
  • CO2 equivalence of material averted from landfill
  • Weight of material averted from landfill in first life
How Canoa does it:
  • Responsive design. Nothing should be hard coded. Adapting with our teams is a feature not a bug.
  • Ask FF&E to carry a bigger load and avoid deploying traditional construction where possible.
  • Bias modular. Push forward the use of modular and prefabricated components including compliance.
Buy Better
Data driven decisions
Measured through:
  • Asset life expectancy
  • Material content
  • Cradle to gate CO2 equivalences
How Canoa does it:
  • Data transparency
  • Auto-generated CO2 calculations
  • Bias second life first
Waste Nothing
Second life, simplified
Measured through:
  • Count of assets tracked
  • Types of assets tracked
  • Age in months and years
  • Average depreciation & valuation
How Canoa does it:
  • RFID tagging
  • Inventory management
  • Insights
  • Resell marketplace (coming soon)
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Circular by design

Product enters marketplace
Product used in workspace, until it's no longer used
Product returns to the marketplace
Product is selected by a designer and used in a different workspace
Podcast
Our founder Federico Negro joins Evan Troxel to talk about how he traversed the building industry to get where he is now. From disaster relief after Hurricane Katrina, to delivering space as a product, architecture's failure to scale, burnout, health and much more.
Listen in
The story behind how we got started