SUSTAINABLE OBSOLESCENCE: Green with envy over industries benefitting from planned obsolescence, some furniture people quietly pine away for un-Green sustainability

Despite all the Green talk, the nobility of sustainability may only be sales patois among some furniture people predisposed to honor feel good words and warm phrases just to stimulate business.

Of course, sustainability is not bunk, but a virtue. But that cherished virtue hasn’t squelched a secret desire that furniture needs to possess the delicious sales stimulant of planned obsolescence.

Green as a virtue and marketing tactic will grow. Among people wanting to invest in furniture and home furnishings, the idea of planned obsolescence is repugnant. Nothing will harm a vulnerable industry more than gushing claims for Green as the only factor possessing some sustainability.

If I heard the phrase “planned obsolescence” once, I heard it many times during October’s High Point Market. In fact, the sell-anything-who-cares crowd has always embraced a throw-away furniture ethic.

When I would ask about stimulating sales, some variant of “What we need is furniture with built-in obsolescence” would worm its way into the conversation.

That thinking, as anachronistic as it may be, still smolders beneath the sustained surface of an industry struggling to find ways to furnish homes to sustain business.

Here’s wishing the Green movement keeps more than the faith and acts aggressively to be sure to banish any charlatans within its midst, so the great Irish ballad holds true, as we all sing:

Green grow the lilacs, all sparkling with dew

I'm lonely, my darling, since parting with you;

But by our next meeting I'll hope to prove true

And change the green lilacs to the Red, White and Blue!