Certification status
Plainly: Oaknest holds no chain-of-custody certification of its own yet. Our timber is purchased from suppliers holding FSC or PEFC chain-of-custody certification, and at launch each product page will state the certification line behind its timber, with documentation available on request. If we can't evidence a batch, we won't badge it.
What certification actually means: FSC and PEFC certify the chain of custody from forest to factory. They are the only widely audited claims in this industry. A retailer saying "eco-friendly timber" without one of these (or a documented equivalent) is describing a feeling.
Sourcing policy
Our commitments, checkable at launch: we will name the species and country of harvest for every piece; we will not use timber from unverified tropical sources; and where certified stock is available for a species we use, we will buy it and say so per product. Design and specification happen in New Zealand; making happens in a specialist solid-hardwood workshop, and the country of manufacture will be stated on every product page — not hidden in a shipping label.
The biggest lever is lifespan
A dining table used for 25 years has a quarter of the annual footprint of one replaced every six. Solid hardwood's environmental argument is not the forest sticker — it's that the piece is repairable, refinishable, and worth re-selling instead of landfilling. Particle-board furniture is functionally single-owner: it rarely survives one house move, and its resin content makes it poor firewood and worse landfill.
Trade-off, stated: solid hardwood has a higher upfront footprint than board — more timber per piece, and ours ships internationally. The case rests on the denominator: years of service. If you replace furniture frequently by preference, solid hardwood isn't the efficient choice for you.
End of life
A solid piece at the end of your use of it should be sold, given away, or refinished — and our care and construction pages exist partly so a second owner can do that. Actual end-of-life solid timber is recyclable as clean wood waste in most NZ/AU council systems; the hardware unscrews for metal recycling. We'll publish disassembly notes per piece.