On the Road of Sustainability since 1889 B E R N H A R D T Furniture Company

Bernhardt Furniture Company Inc., located in the foothills of Western North Carolina, is one of the largest family owned and operated marketers of fine wood and upholstered furniture in the United States.

As of today Bernhardt Furniture Company employees over 950 people and maintains 10 facilities in Caldwell County, with most of the operations in Lenoir and an outlet store in Granite Falls

We also have staffed showrooms in High Point, Chicago, Los Angeles, and international offices in China, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

As a family-owned and operated company, we care about the health and welfare of our employees, our customers, our community and our planet. We have a corporate tradition of protecting the environment, and conserving energy and natural resources

Today we are a global company but our beginning was in the lumber and timber business and the conservation and stewardship of this resource is still one of our guiding principles

Our Founder, John Mathias Bernhardt

Wood is one of the most sustainable and renewable resources available in the United States but it must be managed properly to stay that way.

Bernhardt uses 100% of the primary wood and wood products that we purchase none of it goes to the landfill.

The scrap wood that comes from our manufacturing processes is used for fuel that provides comfort and process heat.

Since 2006 we have kept 31,948 tons of wood scrap out of the landfill

This is equal to the weight of 21,793 Toyota Prius’ or 16% of their 2009 US sales

Since we recently began removing coal from our air permits, The emissions from these boilers are recognized by the US EPA as not contributing any CO2 to our Green House Gas Emissions

In 2008 Bernhardt partnered with the EPA to voluntarily report and reduce Green House Gas Emissions. So far 3 facilities are fully reporting with the rest being phased in.

What was the largest contributor to Bernhardt’s GHG footprint ?

84% is from purchased electricity

We formed an energy team and appointed an energy czar to review, reduce and manage our electrical consumption

To reduce our GHG footprint we analyzed every aspect of our electrical energy consumption. We not only did energy audits but we inventoried every electrical device.

The team made several changes in our consumption habits. They eliminated lights and fixtures, and changed the lights that remained to low wattage with electronic ballast.

They began a program to reduce our electrical horsepower and implemented a motor change program that matched the motor to its needs as opposed to buying the biggest available.

We have completed a major rewiring campaign that allows us to selectively operate equipment without having to power unnecessary areas

One of the simplest and most economically productive things we did was to simply ‘turn it off”.

$130, reduction in electrical cost in 2009

Wood conservation and GHG’s are not the only areas that we are focusing on with our efforts to be good environmental stewards

Currently 71% of our process waste has been diverted from the landfill through our recycling and repurposing efforts. Our flammable liquid waste is reclaimed and sent to be blended for use as fuel.

We are not stopping here, we have approved a $636,000 project to install VFD’s on all motors over 10 horsepower that operate 1500 hours annually

We are reviewing APU’s for our fleet of trucks to eliminate all truck idling for climate control

When our solutions quit being “less bad” and are actually “good for”. 2 bullets in the head are less bad than 6, but the outcome is the same

We as a people have to understand and accept the “less bad” progress until our technology gets us to the position that we can be “good for”

We need to be creative and make sure that we don’t just stop with “less bad solutions”. Environmentally sound ideas and programs are our children's future. It is not just a moral obligation, it may be our next economic boom.

We are working on solar, wind, kinetic energy from the sea, and other sources of power why not harness the rotation of the earth itself?

“We want to go beyond simply complying with environmental legislation and regulations; we want to become leading supporters in our community and industry.” Alex Bernhardt Sr. Chairman and CEO of Bernhardt Furniture Company