Original Home

All of Ori­gi­nal­ho­me’s pro­ducts are pro­du­ced ethi­cal­ly. The com­pa­ny aims to crea­te as many jobs as pos­si­ble in poorer regi­ons of the world. They work with small and medi­um-sized social enter­pri­ses that ope­ra­te accor­ding to a sus­tainable and social mis­si­on. Ori­gi­nal­home puts a few prin­ci­ples at the heart of this: the sup­port of local (rural) com­mu­ni­ties, crafts that crea­te jobs, fair trade and the eman­ci­pa­ti­on of women.

The com­pa­nies Ori­gi­nal­home works with are loca­ted in Indo­ne­sia, Ban­gla­desh and Tan­z­a­nia. It is often not fea­si­ble for small busi­nesses to be cer­ti­fied, which is why Ori­gi­nal­home has its own ​“Earth and Peo­p­le Fri­end­ly” cer­ti­fi­ca­ti­on. The­se manu­fac­tu­r­ers are also moni­to­red and gui­ded by Ori­gi­nal­home to ope­ra­te sus­tain­ab­ly and ethi­cal­ly. It is nice to see that Ori­gi­nal­home puts ethi­cal working con­di­ti­ons first, but be awa­re that they are not inde­pendent­ly audi­ted by their self-estab­lished certificate.

All inte­ri­or and uti­li­ty items from Ori­gi­nal­home are made from natu­ral mate­ri­als. For this, the brand uses only rene­wa­ble raw mate­ri­als or resi­du­al mate­ri­als. Dif­fe­rent mate­ri­als are used in the inte­ri­or tex­ti­les such as table linens and pil­lows, for exam­p­le jute, recy­cled pro­duc­tion resi­dues and dis­card­ed clothing.

The wood used for kit­chen­wa­re and fur­ni­tu­re does not come direct­ly from trees. Resi­du­al mate­ri­als are used for this, coming from old hou­ses, barns or boats. The brand also uses wood from natu­ral­ly fal­len trees and the root wood of teak. In teak plan­ta­ti­ons, the roots are often seen as was­te, while it is actual­ly qua­li­ta­ti­ve hard­wood. So at Ori­gi­nal­home, no trees need to be cut down for a nice cut­ting board or side table!

The­se sus­tainable prin­ci­ples are woven into all of Ori­gi­nal­ho­me’s pro­ducts. For exam­p­le, the bas­kets and lamp­sha­des are woven from Aba­ca, Hog­la, Men­dong, Rat­tan, Sea Grass and Water Hya­c­in­th. The­se are all fast-gro­wing plants that are local to the pro­duc­tion sites. 

Ori­gi­nal­ho­me’s cand­les are made from vegan palm ker­nel oil. This is an oil pres­sed from the ker­nels of the palm fruit, simi­lar to the wide­ly used palm oil for which the who­le fruit is pres­sed. Unfort­u­na­te­ly, the­re are a lot of pro­blems in the palm oil indus­try. It leads to forest clea­ring in the tro­pi­cal rain­fo­rest, CO2 emis­si­ons and des­truc­tion of local eco­sys­tems. On top of that, it is often dan­ge­rous work for workers in the fac­to­ries and plan­ta­ti­ons, with no fair wages.

Ori­gi­nal­ho­me’s pro­ducts score well in terms of cir­cu­la­ri­ty. Ori­gi­nal­home uses many mate­ri­als that would other­wi­se be seen as was­te pro­ducts. By incor­po­ra­ting the­se mate­ri­als into the coll­ec­tion, they are given a new life and the was­te moun­tain is redu­ced. For exam­p­le, all the glass­wa­re is made from dis­card­ed glass bot­t­les. In Tan­z­a­nia tou­rism cau­ses a was­te pro­blem, Ori­gi­nal­home helps to tack­le this nuisance.

Becau­se only natu­ral mate­ri­als are used, the pro­ducts are always biode­gra­da­ble after use. Ori­gi­nal­home takes spe­cial account of this by, for exam­p­le, not using glues and trea­ting the woo­den artic­les with a natu­ral oil.

The sup­p­ly chain is spread far and wide; Ori­gi­nal­home works with manu­fac­tu­r­ers from Ban­gla­desh, Indo­ne­sia and Tan­z­a­nia. But the raw mate­ri­als are always sourced from the manu­fac­tu­rer’s area. This ensu­res a slight­ly shorter chain. Becau­se Ori­gi­nal­home works direct­ly with smal­ler manu­fac­tu­r­ers, the num­ber of inter­me­dia­te links in the chain are limi­t­ed. In this way, the brand main­ta­ins con­trol over working con­di­ti­ons and avo­ids unneces­sa­ry cos­ts in favor of fair wages.

Ori­gi­nal­home does not use mate­ri­als of ani­mal ori­gin in their pro­ducts. As such, the brand is PETA-cer­ti­fied (Peo­p­le for the Ethi­cal Tre­at­ment of Ani­mals) as com­ple­te­ly vegan!

All Ori­gi­nal­home items are hand­ma­de with care for qua­li­ty and atten­ti­on to detail. Due to hand­work and natu­ral mate­ri­als, pro­ducts may vary slight­ly in color or size. This makes your purcha­se com­ple­te­ly uni­que!

Through Ori­gi­nal­ho­me’s site you can find infor­ma­ti­on on each pro­duct about whe­re it is made, what mate­ri­als it is made of and care tips. In this way, the com­pa­ny is very trans­pa­rent about all the manu­fac­tu­r­ers they work with and the ori­gin of the materials.