Skip to main content
Align

Design Practices
to Protect the Planet

Scroll

Align is a challenge we’ve given ourselves: Develop materials with intentionality and empower architects, designers, and consumers to make smart choices about how we buy and how we build.

Beautiful Products

Nourish the Planet

We believe it's imperative to align the creation of beautifully designed products with actions and practices that help protect and nourish the planet. At the 3form family of companies (3form, LightArt, EFI, and Springboard), these actions and practices are collectively called Align – our platform of Earth and people-centric initiatives that will guide our path forward.

Three main pillars – people, product, and planet – provide the framework for Align. These pillars translate into a focus on human well-being alongside design methods and manufacturing processes that conserve and restore the planet.

3form recognizes the power and responsibility of the architecture and design industry to embrace appropriate and urgent solutions for a stable climate, a healthy built environment, and a robust circular economy. Align is our challenge to ourselves: Develop materials with intentionality and empower architects, designers, and consumers to make smart choices about how we buy and how we build.

Building on more than 15 years of sustainability leadership at 3form, Align is the next step toward net-positive manufacturing. Our focus is to optimize current products and establish protocols for the products of the future–not only reducing our footprint but contributing to the restoration of our planet and the betterment of human lives.
We are a founding member of the Living Product 50 (LP50)–a group of forward-thinking companies defining, adhering to and promoting the rigorous benchmarks of the ILFI’s Living Product Challenge (LPC). This comprehensive framework is the peak standard for developing products that are healthy, socially responsible, and give back to the environment.
Products meeting the Align standard will be labeled with the Align stamp–an instant indicator of responsibly designed products carrying industry certifications such as Living Product Challenge, EPDs, Declare labels, and GreenGuard Gold. This allows architects and designers the opportunity to meet LEED v4.1, WELL and other green building challenges.

People

Community and Wellness

The “family" in 3form family of companies is more than a euphemism– it’s how we treat people. To protect the health and wellness of our employees, our clients, and the people involved in our supply chain, we utilize Declare labels for ingredient disclosure and GreenGuard certification for indoor air quality assurance. By eliminating the use of Red List chemicals, many of our products qualify for the rigorous standards in Living Building Challenge, LEED v4.1, and WELL building challenges. 
 
But we don’t just want to protect people — we want them to thrive. That’s why we are working toward JUST certification — a nutrition label for socially fair organizations, earned in part by ensuring equitable, healthy, and transparent workplaces. It’s also why we developed the Full Circle program to support artisans and their communities worldwide. Meaningful social impacts include micro-savings infrastructures, midwifery education, and adult literacy.
 
We are committed to empowering our employees and our local communities, investing in fitness and wellness programs, an annual GreenWeek celebration, and monthly sustainability challenges and continuing education.  We support our communities through donations to local nonprofits supporting affordable housing, community gardens and other meaningful causes. The “family" in 3form family of companies is more than a euphemism– it’s how we treat people.

Product

Innovative and Responsible

Can we create products made from the highest quality of materials that contribute to positive environmental and social impact and connect people back to nature? We believe we not only can, but should–at the 3form companies, we start by measuring and reporting our environmental impact through life cycle analyses, EPDs and other disclosures, and continue to optimize our products in pursuit of Living Product Challenge and other respected third-party verifications.
 
17 years ago, we launched an industry-defining flagship product that contained recycled content. This year, we introduced a product with 75% recycled content from our scraps, seeking to close the loop. These are steps in our pursuit of zero waste manufacturing, which is one of several steps we’re taking towards creating net-positive products. Other steps include reducing our products’ embodied carbon and water usage, as well as an investment in our longstanding take back program, preventing materials from ending up in landfill.
 
We take ingredient health and transparency seriously, utilizing declare labels, applying greener chemistry in our supply chain and aggressively removing Red List chemicals from our products. We are a recognized pioneer in bringing transparency to the marketplace, beginning with our position as a pilot manufacturer in Google’s Healthy Materials initiative and continuing today with our longstanding Continuing Education (CEU) program.
 
Additional goals are accomplished by sourcing materials around the globe to incorporate socially responsible and hand-crafted artisan materials. We manufacture our flagship goods both in North American facilities and abroad under the guidance of our sustainability initiatives and with an emphasis on biophilic design. 

Planet

Protect and Conserve

We use life-cycle analysis to understand and publicly report, through Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), the environmental impact of our products, as a first step to reducing those impacts. 
 
Our climate responsibility measures start with efficient use of energy and materials, and are complemented by investing in renewable energy credits, verified emission reductions, and on-site solar generation. We seek to achieve zero-waste in manufacturing and to encourage a circular economy through the use of recycled, recaptured, and re-imagined ingredients, as well as implementing take-back programs for our products. 
 
Under the guidance of Align, we aim to create net-positive products that will leave our planet in better condition than when we started. In other words, we intend to design and manufacture products in ways that protect, nourish, conserve, and restore the planet–in ways that are scientifically quantified, and independently verified. These lofty and urgent goals are baked into our culture because we see our products and influence as a means to a better world.