At Tom Seely Furniture, we hold sacred the wood we work with and woods we live amongst. We purchase our lumber through purveyors that employ careful, sustainable harvesting practices. We strive to build furniture that will long outlast the trees that afford us our craft. We subscribe to a philosophy that nothing in nature should be wasted. We give our scrap wood to local artisans for carving and basket making. Local farmers use our sawdust and wood shavings for livestock bedding. Everything else goes to our employees and neighbors to help heat their homes in the winter. Even when it comes time to package our furniture, we still avoid the use of cardboard boxes or Styrofoam fillers. Instead, we opt for reusable packing blankets made from reclaimed fabrics.
     Finishing furniture can generate significant air pollution. Instead of simply accepting this as fact, we set out a few years ago to find creative ways to dramatically reduce our air emissions. We are succeeding! Thanks to new formulations, equipment and procedures, since 1996 we have reduced our annual hazardous air emissions by 87% and our volatile organic emissions by 36%. These improvements have come despite significant increases in the amount of furniture we finish and continue at a similar rate today. In 2001, we received the inaugural West Virginia Business Environmental Leadership Award for our achievements in the area of pollution prevention.