A new life for Isku's cutting waste

Furniture excess canvas

Isku is one of our partners with whom we are giving new life to sofa textiles. Growing from a small workshop to a modern factory, Isku has been manufacturing furniture in its hometown of Lahti since 1928. Responsibility is evident in everything Isku does, from raw materials to design and production to finished furniture. A new use for waste began to emerge when the upholstery waste from Isku sofas was put to good use. Previously, only small amounts of surplus fabric had been used, but most of the good quality material still ended up in waste. Now, surplus material from Isku leather sofas is collected and transformed into Lovia bags.

FOUNDED: 1928

EMPLOYEES: 750

LOCATION: LAHTI, FINLAND

How do you make durable bags from sofa canvas?

You may have wondered how on earth the canvas of the sofa and the bags are connected. We want to openly reveal the backgrounds of the materials we use, so that you can get a true understanding of the origin of the bags and how it works in practice. The production of sofas leaves behind cutting waste, which is difficult to utilize due to its small size. However, they are the perfect material for Lovia’s unique bags. The designs of our bags are designed with the materials in mind, allowing even the smallest pieces to be used. This way, we do not burden nature, but give an existing material a new purpose. The canvas used in furniture is designed to withstand heavy wear and tear, so it is a great feature for bags designed to last a long time!

After the furniture has been upholstered at Isku’s factory in Lahti, the excess pieces are collected and sent to us in Helsinki, where they are sorted and cleaned for further use. Next, the cutting waste ends up on our designer Outi’s desk, where the canvas pieces are transformed into sketches for new bags.

Greetings from the Lahti factory

We want to give our partners a chance to have their voices heard, because without them the idea of ​​utilizing waste material would just remain, well, an idea. Here are some greetings from Isku and snippets from the team’s everyday life, just as it appears at the factory in Lahti.

“We always strive to find a new life for all our by-products. We want to recycle surplus leather and canvas as material and we are pleased with the cooperation with Lovia. In the hands of a responsible partner, surplus materials get a new life in the form of bags.”

-Kaisa Vuori, Sustainability Director, Isku

We do a lot of good, but we are not perfect.

Our collaboration with Isku reduces the environmental burden compared to producing bags only from materials made for them. However, there is always room for improvement, especially when it comes to responsibility and developing the collaboration further. We share a vision with Isku that even the smallest surplus scraps can be given a new life. We receive as many canvas pieces of different sizes and colors from Isku for further use as possible, but there are still small pieces and leather scraps left over from sofa production that we cannot utilize. In the future, we want to turn the scraps into grit that will serve as a raw material for recycled material. We could use this material again in the production of our new bags.

In addition, we are currently experimenting with a new collaboration model with Isku, where we provide Isku with the sizes of the leather and canvas pieces we need and Isku directly delivers the pieces of the appropriate size to us, without the Lovia team having to travel to Lahti separately to investigate the available options. This way we reduce emissions from transportation and, of course, our team members' time, which allows them to focus on coming up with ideas for the next trash creation.

find treasures made from surplus canvas and leather