Enriching the Planet and its People

As a company founded by a landscape architect and outdoor enthusiast, sustainability, stewardship and a profound respect for natural spaces are deeply rooted in our company DNA. Our stated purpose is to “Enrich Outdoor Spaces,” and environmental stewardship is part and parcel of achieving this purpose.

Today, we strive to be a model for others in our industry, so collectively we all make a significant contribution to preserving our planet for future generations. Design, Culture and Craft—the three pillars at the core of Landscape Forms—are all backed by a strong sense of environmental accountability that drives us in every aspect of our business: product development, materials, facilities, manufacturing, supply chain, and people.

Understanding What Goes IN to the Outdoors

Our Life Cycle Analysis initiative is a cradle-to-grave examination of the carbon footprint of all major material categories at every product stage, including upstream materials, core manufacturing, packaging, transport, use, maintenance, and disposal at end of life. Our analysis is facility-specific, capturing the highest level of process-specific detail needed to help us best understand the impact of our organization and help our customers best understand the impact of their designs.

Partnering for a Better Future with SITES®

We are proud to be a SITES Community Partner, sharing in the commitment to creating outdoor spaces that are ecologically resilient, high-performance and enhance communities in meaningful ways. The Sustainable SITES Initiative® is a rating system that evaluates and certifies a project’s sustainability throughout planning, design, construction and management. It captures all the benefits outdoor spaces can provide, and guides us to confidently build new landscapes, better and with fewer tradeoffs. And through our solutions and specific support, we help landscape architects, designers and planners streamline the process toward SITES Certification.

Durable is Sustainable

Our products are designed and engineered to withstand the rigors of natural environment and heavy use to live long, successful lives in outdoor landscapes. The durability, longevity and low maintenance of our products is instrumental to the responsible stewardship of the earth’s resources.

Lighting for the People and the Planet

We design lighting to support both the health of the planet and its people. High quality lighting components—from internal electronics, to LEDs, to aluminum heat sinks, to surge protection—allow the luminaires to be crafted more sustainably and last longer without the need for replacement.

Many of our lights are International Dark-Sky Approved fixtures. These luminaires protect our night skies from harmful light pollution—actively reducing glare, eliminating excessive blue light, and mitigating light trespass and skyglow which can harm many aspects ranging from crop yield, to animal migration, to human circadian rhythm.

We Use Recycled Material Wherever Possible

All the products we launched in 2022 incorporate pre-consumer and post-consumer recycled content, and to ship them, we use recycled corrugated board and a custom-size box system to further reduce the use of new shipping material.

Leaner is always greener

We follow Kaizen principles of continuous improvement across all aspects of the company—from the corner office to the manufacturing floor. This approach prioritizes waste reduction and pollution prevention. At the end of the day, increased efficiency will always be key to the sustainable use of finite resources.

We’re all-in on recycling

We develop specialized processes to ensure all steel, aluminum, concrete, wood scrap and sawdust generated in our manufacturing processes is recycled. 99% of the water used in our manufacturing process is also recycled.

Sustainability is in the smarter use of materials

In our wood furniture, we utilize species that weather naturally and don’t require paint or finishes. And for materials that do require coating, we ensure all finishes are free of lead, free of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), do not generate hazardous waste, and contain less than 1% of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which become fully inert once processed. 

We go local to lower our impact

We utilize local material suppliers and vendor services to significantly reduce the environmental impacts of extended transportation. The majority of our steel and extruded aluminum originates from mills and plants within 150 miles of our facility, and we make sure all our suppliers are regularly audited for responsible environmental practices.

Our efforts start at home

As our facilities expand and evolve, implementing leading sustainability solutions is always a driving motivation. Our office expansion in 2000 worked to break up heat islands, leverage site orientation to maximize energy conservation, and convert all our lighting to LEDs—a change that reduced our lighting energy consumption by over 80%.

Local change has global effects

By supporting our local communities, collectively we can enhance global social and environmental sustainability in big ways. We go local wherever possible in our supply chain, and we invest in our local Kalamazoo workforce by offering a range of opportunities for professional development and mobility. We participate in the Michigan Adopt-A-Highway Program, sponsoring a two-mile stretch of highway in our community, and we partner with the Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy to help maintain the Chipman Preserve, a 228- acre park with six miles of trails.

Working together to put people and our planet first

We work with Bell’s Brewery and other local Kalamazoo-area businesses to help keep more plastics out of our landfills. Because many small businesses don’t meet minimum quantity requirements for large-scale recyclers, the recycling “co-op” pools and bales recyclables from smaller operations to ensure these materials stay out of landfills.

Making a positive impact together

Landscape Forms is a proud member of 1% for the Planet, a global movement that pairs businesses with approved environmental nonprofits, creating high-impact partnerships that amplify the influence of their members’ giving. We have pledged our donations to the Landscape Architecture Foundation, a nonprofit organization working to increase the impact of landscape architects in creating a more sustainable future.