Our Approach to Sustainability
Remains Lighting Company is committed to environmental stewardship and human wellness from the fabrication of our lighting designs to the operation of our workspaces. Headquartered in a LEED Gold-certified factory in Bushwick, Brooklyn, we craft products of quality and longevity.
Designed as heirloom objects, our fixtures are made to be passed down through generations rather than discarded and replaced. We prioritize enduring materials and time-honored manufacturing processes that allow each piece to be repaired, refinished, and restored over the course of its life. Should a fixture ultimately reach the end of its useful lifespan, its primary components—metal and glass—are almost entirely recyclable, supporting a more circular material economy.
Our decades-long commitment of reducing our negative impacts informs every stage of our work: from responsible, often local sourcing and efficient fabrication to minimizing waste and maintaining durable finishes that age gracefully. By creating pieces that are built to last, we aim to reduce our environmental impacts while preserving the craftsmanship and material integrity that define Remains.
Manufacturing Systems and Environmental Controls
Remains approaches sustainability as a function of material stewardship, process longevity, and environmental accountability across the full life cycles of our fixtures.
Our fabrication operations prioritize high-recycled-content brass, machined on equipment equipped with variable-speed drives to reduce unnecessary energy load during production. Finishing is conducted through closed-loop plating and patination systems that capture, treat, and recirculate process water rather than discharging it to municipal systems.
Over the past two decades, Remains has steadily localized and vertically integrated our production, bringing machining, welding and brazing, sheet-metal fabrication, electroplating, polishing, and final assembly in-house. This consolidation shortens supply chains, reducing transportation intensity between production stages while allowing direct oversight of environmental controls, worker safety, and material handling. Vertical integration also improves material yield and process coordination, enabling tighter management of scrap recovery, finishing inputs, and production waste. Rather than dispersing environmental responsibility across multiple vendors, we retain accountability within our own operations, where standards, monitoring, and continuous improvement can more rigorously maintained.
We continue to evaluate our processes through the lenses of energy intensity, material yield, and waste minimization—seeking measurable reductions in resource while maintaining the durability and reparability that define our work. These efforts reflect an ongoing commitment to responsible manufacturing rather than a fixed sustainability endpoint.
Our LEED Gold-Certified Factory
Our Brooklyn factory operates within a historic industrial building originally constructed in 1920 which we retrofitted to meet LEED Gold standards. We prioritized adaptive reuse, retaining the embodied carbon of the existing structure while upgrading its environmental performance through contemporary building systems.This approach also reflects our commitment to historic preservation and to the industrial heritage of Brooklyn's manufacturing landscape. By restoring and maintaining a century-old fabrication facility for active production, we extend the useful life of both the building and the craft traditions historically housed within it.
Our energy infrastructure includes a 17 kW rooftop solar array, supplemented by electricity sourced from a wind farm in upstate New York, reducing reliance on fossil fuel-derived grid power. The roof integrates a stormwater retention system paired with approximately 1,500 square feet of planted surface. This slows runoff, supports on-site water management, and contributes to thermal buffering that moderates heat gain across the building envelope.
Cooling demand is mitigated through low-energy and passive measures, including ceiling fans and retractable awnings regulated by thermostatic controls, significantly reducing our dependence on mechanical air conditioning. Interior lighting loads are similarly managed through daylight-responsive control systems and occupancy sensors that modulate fixture output in response to real-time use.
Through targeted retrofits instead of ground-up replacement, the facility reflects our broader approach to sustainability: extending the life of existing assets, preserving industrial infrastructure, and systematically improving environmental performance over time.
Shipping Materials & Waste Recovery
Our approach to packaging prioritizes material recovery, protective durability, and waste stream reduction alongside responsible shipping practices. Whenever possible, we utilize void fill derived from post-consumer and post-industrial paper streams, including cornstarch-based loose fill and 100% recycled paper products.
Cardboard generated through our own operations is captured and reprocessed on-site: a dedicated shredding system converts clean corrugated waste into protective packing material, extending the useful life of fiber resources that would otherwise enter conventional recycling flows. This closed-loop approach reduces demand for virgin packaging inputs while diverting substantial volumes of cardboard from the waste stream.
From a logistics standpoint, we participate in the UPS carbon neutral shipping program, which offsets a portion of transportation-related emissions through verified environmental projects. While offsets do not eliminate the impacts of freight, they function as one component within a broader effort to account for and mitigate shipping emissions.
Packaging configurations of our products are designed to balance material efficiency with fixture protection, recognizing that shipping damage-related remanufacturing and reshipment carry their own environmental costs.
Human Sustainability
At Remains, sustainability extends to the well-being of the people who make our work possible. We view the factory not only as a site of production, but as an environment that shapes daily physical, social, and mental experiences.
Employees maintain a seasonal garden on factory grounds, cultivating vegetables and herbs in a shared outdoor space. The garden provides opportunities for restorative time away from the production floor and encourages informal collaboration across departments. At various times throughout the year, we host activities such as seed swaps and neighborhood block cleanups, supporting local connection and shared stewardship of our surrounding environment.
Our commitment to human sustainability also includes direct investment in employee health. In addition to employer-sponsored insurance, the company provides meaningful annual support toward out-of-pocket healthcare expenses, helping offset the financial burden of medical care and supporting long-term workforce well being.
Taken together, these initiatives reflect a broader view of sustainability: one that encompasses not only environmental responsibility, but the physical, social, and economic resilience of the people who sustain our work.
Remains Lighting Company approaches sustainability as a long-term commitment to material integrity, responsible manufacturing, and the well-being of the people and places connected to our work. Explore our Collections or visit our About page to learn more.
