Jason and I went on an incredibly inspiring trip to the Maison et Objet show in Paris last week and came across the Portuguese company Carlos Alfredo. As we inspected the traditional joinery methods used in making these surprisingly modern and innovative designs, we were offered the finest port wine.

The company has been successfully trading for over half a decade making traditional dining suites. However, the Wewood venture is a new platform in which the company collaborates with young independent designers, breathing fresh life into conventional joinery methods.

Amongst my favourites was a chest of drawers called Touch by design studio Suricata.

Each drawer has a gentle curve enabling a hidden handle, as well as a slow closing mechanism. The base is made from steel, allowing the entire unit to appear as though it's hovering weightlessly above the ground.

Another piece, the BS01 desk designed by Bruno Serraro, has a ludicrous amount of hidden storage compartments, drawers and a cable guard built into the top. A very clever solution to consolidate storage.

It was incredibly impressive to see such fun and thoughtful design made for solid wood. One of the highlights of my visit this year without a doubt!

Entitled 'For Austerity's Sake', design critic Nicole Swengley writes about Chest of Drawers in Saturday's Financial Times - the venerable 'How to Spend It' magazine. She celebrates the trend towards a "...more considered, even intellectual approach, to buying furniture. Showy pieces and glitzy designs are giving way to to a very simple - almost stark - aesthetic underpinned by quality craftsmanship."

Swengley continues "... of course some furniture makers have always espoused a pared-down, almost austere look. The rustic, hand-crafted, solid wood furniture sold by long established London retailer Chest of Drawers scooped a Guardian Sustainable Business Award a few months ago..." OK, I'll swallow the 'rustic' remark since she nailed this growing appreciation for all things well crafted right on the head. Personally I like the inference that our aesthetic is 'raw' - that we allow the natural elements of grain, tone and character of our timber to prevail in all of our designs. And I grant that there are rustic elements in our Eden table. Raw or rustic, the article is a tribute to all the designers who espouse simple, well crafted design.

Swengley offers up some beautiful pieces in her article and I wholly support her assertion that the demand for quality and craftsmanship in simple design is indeed enjoying a resurgence.

These are cool, they have street cred and eco cred! Levi's have been busy making a fuss over waterless jeans, a project that looked at full life cycle of a pair of 501s and came up with a way to reduce the amount of water used over the life of the jeans to between 28-96%. What's really interesting is that 45% comes from the washing of the jeans once a consumer buys them. So that bit is not entirely in their control but that doesn't stop them - they have teamed up with a large laundry product manufacturer to address that side as well. Read more on their site. A pair of Levi's always looked good, now they look even better! So make sure to wash your Steve McQueen's in cold water!

We met up with Tim Larcombe, MD at Levi's, at the Guardian Sustainable Business awards where Levi's won an award for this project. Read what Tim's got to say about it on our interview page. There's a great video too!

Yipee! We scooped the Guardian’s Sustainable Business Award last night. Beating fellow finalists and multi-nationals Unilever and Lend Lease for a shock victory in the supply chain category. With other category winners being Tesco, Levi, British Land and Marks & Spencer, it shows that you don’t need to be big to be innovative and make a difference.

Director Kim Corbett said “We are absolutely thrilled - all of us, the staff, our suppliers, even my hard to impress children who wanted to take the award to school with them this morning! This means so much to us and all our staff, and of course credit belongs to our loyal customers too. We have always concentrated on long lasting, well designed furniture from sustainable sources, but we never thought we could win an award in such salubrious company. We see this as simply another step in a long process of showing that businesses, large and small, can be run with a responsible attitude to the environment.”

Tonight we’re off to Kings Place - where they’ll announce the winners of the Guardian Sustainable Business Awards. We're shortlisted in the Supply Chain category along with Uniliver and Lendlease [LINK] . The competition is tough so we're keeping our fingers crossed. Jason Delf, a director at Chest of Drawers says, "The awards are great and we're pleased just to have made it to the final and to be in such salubrious company. The concept of sustainability is vast but the supply chain is a major part of it.  We began our environmental rating label project after we read a book by Felicity Lawrence about food labelling. We wanted to give customers information about our workshops' working practices and wood sourcing, as well as transportation issues summarised by ‘furniture miles’. It was our campaign to change the furniture industry one chest of drawers at a time! Information and education are all part of raising awareness of the issue. We still believe that transparency is the key to convince both consumers and manufacturers that there is a way forward that will benefit both. When we began our environmental label project there was a distinct lack of interest from everyone, or at best a mild bewilderment. Nowadays suppliers actively try to increase their ratings with us and our customers ask more and more about where the wood comes from etc. These are all important steps in the campaign to change consumer buying habits. Legislation may ultimately pave the way for a more sustainable industry but consumers can play a major part in making this happen. Changing buying patterns has an immediate effect because manufacturers ultimately provide what the market will pay for. Keep your fingers crossed for us please!"

Hooray! We've made it to the final of the Guardian Sustainable Business Awards for our work improving the environmental and ethical standards in our supply chain. Our environmental grading system is one of the many methods we have used to make our production more responsible and sustainable. Thanks for your support!  Guardian Sustainable Business awards

We were thrilled to be nominated and shortlisted again for the Environmental Awards in 2009 and we humbly accept our nomination to the Environmental Business of the Year (under 200 employee) category. To be nudged out of the first place is difficult but made more palatable because we lost out to the superbly fantastic Arcola Theatre.

We won! Our shop on Upper Street has just won Islington’s green business of the year award. The award recognised the efforts we have made to source sustainable furniture and to inform customers of the environmental and ethical “footprint” of the pieces we offer. It might not be the Oscars, but we’re very proud!