ANJI MOUNTAIN SCORES LAS VEGAS MARKET GLOBAL GOODNESS AWARD
Jeff Gold, vice president, and David Moons, president, of Anji Mountain, with judges Susan Inglis of the Sustainable Furnishings Council and Carol MacNulty, Aid to Artisans, and Esther Ossei-Anto, marketing manager, IMC. |
LAS VEGAS -- Sustainable area rug manufacturer Anji Mountain, a family run business based in St. Louis, was awarded a Global Goodness Award in furnishings at the winter 2017 Las Vegas Market for its sustainable practices and products.
"We have two core initiatives that are focused around global goodness," said David Moons, president of Anji Mountain, founded in 2003. "The first is an organization called Trees for the Future, where we have a commitment to them that by 2025 we will plant a million trees in Africa -- for every product we sell we donate one tree and we have donated over 100,000 trees so far.
"And our other commitment is to GoodWeave -- that every product we bring in from India will be GoodWeave licensed. That means the factories we work with have all been inspected and their looms have been licensed by GoodWeave, and that there is no child labor used in any of our products."
In addition to its collaboration with Trees for the Future and Goodweave, all of Anji's products are sustainable. "It's either a natural fiber rug: jute, seagrass, sisal, bamboo," noted Moons, "or, we are using recycled content." At Las Vegas Market, he said buyers were responding well to introductions of rugs made from recycled leather. "We are also launching a lot of beautiful rugs in PET, which is recycled plastic, and they have been very well received.
"But jute is really our main yarn component. We have found really exciting ways to design rugs with jute to make the fiber very impactful, and we are excited about that."
Anji Mountain won the Las Vegas Market Global Goodness award partly because its products, crafted from renewable natural or recycled materials, are sustainable.
Anji Mountain was among four winners of the sixth annual Global Goodness Awards, recognizing furnishings, home decor and gift companies for environmentally friendly, sustainable and socially responsible activities. The 2017 awards were presented at the winter Las Vegas Market.
A panel of industry sustainability and social responsibility experts -- Colvin English of ByHand Consulting, Susan Inglis of the Sustainable Furnishings Council and Carol MacNulty of Aid to Artisans -- reviewed a record number of entries and selected one winner from each of the market's core industries: gift (Dunitz & Company), home décor (The Cottage Potters) and furnishings (Anji Mountain). A fourth "People's Choice" winner (Quilling Card), was determined by popular voting on the Las Vegas Market Facebook page.
Said Inglis, "I was delighted to be involved as a judge of the Global Goodness initiative this year. I have admired the competition and I was really impressed with many of the entries I saw. There were plenty in furnishings to vote for. And I am delighted to acknowledge Anji Mountain as the winner in the furnishings category. Good work!"
One of the Global Goodness Awards judges, Susan Inglis of the Sustainable Furnishings Council, poses with Anji Mountain president David Moons.