Guido Loeffler and Nick Lee from Innate Furniture (Photo: Supplied)
Guido Loeffler and Nick Lee from Innate Furniture (Photo: Supplied)

BusinessJuly 14, 2020

The backyard furniture business with big plans for NZ’s sustainable building future

Guest writer
Guido Loeffler and Nick Lee from Innate Furniture (Photo: Supplied)
Guido Loeffler and Nick Lee from Innate Furniture (Photo: Supplied)

A success story of the New Zealand Made Products Facebook page, this Christchurch start-up has grown from a backyard workshop to a centre for sustainable architecture and building all in the space of a few months.

Two Christchurch guys needed a table for their flat. So they built one out of scraps of timber in their backyard.

They showed their friends, who thought it was good, and everyone wanted one. So the guys took a few orders, made a few more tables and discovered they had a knack for it.

Over lockdown, they used the time to perfect their craft and give their idea a push on social media. Since then their new business, Innate Furniture, has not stopped growing.

Guido Loeffler and Nick Lee, both in their early 30s, are now dead set on maintaining the momentum and taking their furniture business to big places over the next year, whether there is a pandemic-driven downturn or not.

The two have always had a focus on sustainability and they’ve integrated this into the business by using sustainably grown timber, natural oils and paints, and even shipping their products nationwide in recycled woollen blankets and hemp twine.

Their sustainable ethos proved to be a compelling selling point after they advertised on the New Zealand Made Products Facebook Page and were inundated with interest.

“Within one week we went from a couple of listings on Trade Me to thousands of reactions on Facebook, thousands of followers, hundreds of enquiries, dozens of orders – and it hasn’t stopped,” Loeffler says.

The pair soon moved into a physical workshop so they didn’t have to work out of their backyard, especially important with winter approaching. But with even more orders pouring in, they made the decision to upsize once again.

Their new venue will be up and running from August 1 as they transform an old industrial building into a modern and sustainable furniture workshop and educational facility.

Innate Furniture’s focus is to sell furniture while at the same time teaching other businesses and anyone interested that health and environmentalism begins in the home. Their workshop will have food catered by local plant-based deli Grater Goods and feature a wide range of furniture on display.

Innate Furniture’s outdoor table (Photo: Supplied)

While it has an office, there won’t be a reception desk and there won’t be any printers or conference rooms. Instead, there will be a shared space for architectural teams, joinery students and like-minded passionate people to come and learn about the best ways to build sustainable homes and offices.

Loeffler says they will be working with a wide range of sustainably oriented local businesses to learn and share knowledge for the community.

So what is it about their product that has seen the business booming at a time when so many others are shutting up shop?

Loefller says the consumer trend towards responsible business is inevitable, but it could well be that a global pandemic was the shock to the system that many needed to start reassessing the status quo.

“We’ve bridged the gap between cheap plastic-wrapped imported furniture made from endangered hardwoods, and amazing local joiners creating masterpieces at prices most of us cannot afford,” he says.

Leoffler says he and Lee are currently both working more than 80 hours a week to expand the business and reinvest most of the profits to help its growth.

This is on top of working one day a week in their regular day jobs; Lee is a musician and Loeffler a videographer.

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“[We’re] allowing it to grow organically. We don’t have bank loans or even credit with our suppliers. Our approach is simple, use a stack of wood in the backyard and see how far we can take it. Ambitions are big, already brewing plans to lease larger premises next door in 2021,” Loeffler says.

With such a business mission, it’s clear that sustainability is a passion for Loeffler, who says it’s not just about saving polar bears but about everyone’s survival.

“Our current rate of environmental destruction is not sustainable, and we believe that there is no point focusing on much else if we don’t have fresh air or clean water to sustain life on this planet. It should absolutely come first and foremost to everyone; by definition we cannot survive if we do not live sustainably,” he says.

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(Photo: Getty Images)
(Photo: Getty Images)

BusinessJuly 12, 2020

How electricity demand tells the story of New Zealand’s lockdown

Guest writer
(Photo: Getty Images)
(Photo: Getty Images)

It’s no secret that New Zealand’s Covid-19 response was one of the world’s most effective. But to get an idea of how eagerly parts of our economy have rebounded post lockdown, take a look at our electricity demand data.

Despite an impending wave of unemployment and looming fiscal challenges down the road, New Zealand’s economy has performed surprisingly well in the months following level four lockdown. June retail spending was up 8% on the year before, credit and debit card spending has surged, and our exports continue to trend near their 2019 levels.

It’s an uplift in activity that has impressed economists, even if much of it may be a sugar rush of pent-up demand that will eventually fizzle out. But to truly get an idea of the effectiveness of New Zealand’s lockdown and the zeal with which the economy has rebounded relative to other countries, our electricity consumption data paints a telling picture.

Courtesy of Aloys Nghiem, wholesale market analyst at Mercury, these graphs show the fluctuating demand for electricity across multiple countries as each of them battled their own pandemics. The first graph uses WHO data to establish pandemic status in a range of countries.

Using data coded and sourced from electricity transmission operators from a dozen countries across Europe, America and the Asia Pacific region, the below graph shows how each country’s electricity demand changed after it hit 100 Covid-19 cases and in the days following.

GLOBAL ELECTRICITY DEMAND VS COVID-19 IMPACT (Graphic: Mercury)

Across the board, it shows that the spread of Covid-19 precipitates a drop in electricity demand, as economies begin to shut down and enter various forms of lockdown. While New Zealand’s drop is instant and severe – indicative of the totality of our response, which began even before 100 cases were reached – other countries such as France are more delayed, taking several days for an effect to register before plummeting and hovering at around 65% over the following months.

Of course it should be expected that a country’s economy – and therefore demand for electricity – would contract as Covid-19 cases rise. What is surprising, however, is the rate at which each country’s demand increases depending on its Covid-19 response.

NZ electricity demand (Graphic: Mercury)

Of all the countries, New Zealand’s electricity demand has surged back to pre-Covid levels the fastest. While Australia’s demand is not far behind, the lockdown across the Tasman was not as restrictive so did not cause such a major fall in the first place. Likewise in Taiwan, which had very low Covid-19 cases relative to other countries, the fluctuation in electricity demand was minimal and has sustained a normal level of demand.

Of course, seasonal elements must be factored into this data. After all, the northern hemisphere will be turning off its heaters while we’ll be turning them on. While graph architect Nghiem acknowledges this, he says the size and duration of drop in electricity demand in European countries is beyond what a normal seasonal adjustment would entail. In other words, the fluctuations are so vast they’re unlikely to be a result of domestic energy use and more to do with manufacturing, business and industry – key components of economies’ performance.

There’s also the issue of energy mix. The United States, for instance, is a massive user of natural gas. Therefore its reliance on electricity and the drop in demand is not as significant, despite it having one of the worst Covid-19 responses and highest number of cases. The below graph captures drop in demand vs pandemic intensity and shows the US as a clear outlier.

Despite the United States’ severe pandemic, the reduction in electricity is moderate (Graphic: Mercury)

This would also explain why European countries, most of which rely on a higher proportion of renewable energy, show such a massive and enduring fall in demand. According to Nghiem, this is epitomised by France, whose extensive electric transport system would have been almost entirely shut down as lockdown was enforced. Similarly in Italy, which was the first in Europe to be struck by Covid-19, a rise in cases caused a massive and sustained drop in electricity demand as large parts of the industry- and manufacturing-intensive country went into lockdown.

Northern Italy’s electricity demand (Graphic: Mercury)

 

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