Pimp my outdoor space: Green edition

Vacations are so last year.
According to a recent survey, almost one-third of consumers are staying home during vacation time and 59 percent are cutting back on vacations. Enter the staycation, a fancy term for hanging out in your backyard. Many retailers are hoping staycations will translate into increased outdoor furniture sales.
To help cut through wooden outdoor furniture greenwashing claims, the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) has released its third annual Garden Furniture Scorecard. The Scorecard catalogs 16 retailers selling Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified garden furniture at various price points.
Retailers such as Cost Plus World Market, Crate & Barrel, The Home Depot, Lowe’s and Pottery Barn all scored 4 stars or better, which means that more than 70 percent of their tropical wood garden furniture is from responsible sources. This is the largest group of retailers to attain a score of 4 stars or better.

According to the NWF, The U.S. is the world’s largest single importer of wooden furniture from tropical timber-producing countries, with garden furniture representing about one-fifth of the wooden furniture market. U.S. imports of all tropical wood products have increased four-fold over the past decade. As a result, the once biologically rich forests of countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Brazil are being depleted at an unprecedented rate.
NWF plans to continue its annual surveys of major outdoor furniture retailers to track the progress of making FSC-certified products available to consumers.