-Launching Furniture line at GreenBuild International Expo Oct 7-9 in LA-
-Imperial Stool to be previewed at SynBioBeta Conference Oct 5 in San Francisco-
Green Island, NY – Imagine a fully grown home, with every component biofabricated in just a couple of days. Imagine chairs, tables, desks, and cabinets that are safe to manufacture, healthy to use, and each compostable at the end of its useful life. Breakthrough research and engineering by the upstate New York biomaterials company Ecovative has now turned that vision into reality using its Mushroom® Materials to grow beautiful furniture for the home and office.
Ecovative Design, the pioneer and world leader in the biofabrication of mycelium-based products, is launching a new line of first-of-its-kind, fully grown, mushroom-based furniture—beginning with the Imperial Stool—that is healthy and sustainable.
“Ecovative grows every component of the Imperial stool: the legs, seat, upholstery, cushioning, and the packaging it is protected with. We envision a future where everything for the home—and office—is grown. From the exterior walls, to the insulation, the floors, walls, wall tiles, cabinets, chairs, tables; all of the components traditionally constructed with standard engineered wood containing formaldehyde and other toxic resins, can now be cultivated in our facilities using sustainable, grown products,” said Ecovative co-founder and CEO Eben Bayer
“Building on our core idea that the mycelium of a mushroom can work as ‘nature’s glue’ to bind agriculture waste and wood together, Ecovative’s architects, mycologists, engineers, artists, designers, and others on our team worked together to create these products for a new generation,” said co-founder and Chief Scientist Gavin McIntyre.
Ecovative’s furniture is made from MycoBoard™ panels that are premium, customizable, and certified sustainable. Rather than being bound together using formaldehyde and other toxic resins, the panels are actually grown together using Ecovative’s mResin™ adhesive system. Derived from the mycelium in mushrooms, this “nature’s glue” is formaldehyde-free, safe, and healthy. The stool’s leather-like seat’s resiliency comes from MycoFlex™ cushions, a 100% mycelium foam. The furniture is shipped with polystyrene-free MycoFoam™ packaging that is home compostable.
“Ecovative’s new line of grown furniture fulfills the promise of a truly circular economy: every component can be returned to the earth without harm at the end of its useful life by providing nutrients, not pollutants, to the local environment,” Bayer said.
“Ecovative designing, developing, and selling biofabricated furniture is a significant milestone. The next step in realizing the full potential of this new mushroom-based technology requires rethinking and converting existing particle board mills. That is why we are partnering with mills across North America and Europe to test and pilot our mResin™ adhesive system,” McIntyre said.
Ecovative is launching its new line of grown furniture at the GreenBuild International Conference Oct 5-7, in Los Angeles (Booth 328). Bayer is speaking October 7th on the “Materials: Positive Disrupters” panel. He will preview the Imperial Stool in remarks at the SynBioBeta Conference in San Francisco on October 5th.
McIntyre will be discussing Ecovative’s new furniture line and mill-conversion initiative while in attendance at the Fall meeting of the Composite Panel Association; a gathering of North American producers of particleboard underway (Oct 2-4), in Orlando, Florida.
Industry and consumer use of Ecovative’s formaldehyde-free products and processes may be accelerated as a result of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Federal regulations (announced July 2016) to reduce public exposure to toxic formaldehyde emissions from engineered wood. The new EPA rule specifically cited Ecovative’s formula for biofabricating MycoBoard™ panels as an innovative alternative to the traditional manufacturing of particleboard and other composite wood products.
In a recent article featuring MycoBoard™ panels, in the industry magazine Surface & Panel, former Senior Vice President of the Composite Panel Association Chris Leffel, now of Trinity Innovations, said “From my 30 years of experience, it seems every decade or so a significant technology advancement comes along that transforms the composite panel industry, and MycoBoard™ [panels] is one for the history books.”
The Ecovative Interiors line, including the Imperial Stool and other innovative mycelium-based products for the home and office, is available via: everythinghomegrown.com. MycoBoard™ panels also are available from Ecovative and via Leffel’s Trinity Innovations on the west coast.
Ecovative’s innovative mycelium technology research and engineering has been supported by the Federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, New York State, The Schmidt Family Foundation, the DOEN Foundation, the PostCode Lottery Green Challenge, and others.
About Ecovative
Ecovative is a leading biomaterials company growing high performance, premium, award-winning products that are safe, healthy, and certified sustainable. Products include MycoBoard™ panels for furniture and construction, MycoFoam™ packaging materials, and other consumer goods in its biofabricated Ecovative Interiors line. Ecovative products enable customers—including Fortune 500 companies, international mills, and furniture makers—to meet their design, production, and delivery needs while achieving sustainability goals. Founded in 2007, the pioneer and world leader in mycelium-based biomaterials uses biology to grow materials with exceptional properties unattainable through conventional chemistry.
