10. WORKING BACKWARDS FROM BEAUTIFUL OUTCOMES

Why Now?  10 0f 13 Short Stories.  4 minute read.

There’s no shortage of mattresses available for purchase. So, Why introduce something new, now? Because the materials and processes used to make almost all mattresses rely on petroleum derived chemicals known to be toxic to life. These petro-plastics harm human health, harm the health of all living things, and they are made from the same fossil fuels that are fuelling catastrophic Climate Breakdown. You can debate which is worse; mass toxification of all life forms by petro-plastics, or, burning so much fossil fuel that increasing carbon and heat threatens the viability of a habitable planet. Either way, these twin threats to life are conjoined at the hip, your hip, because both go to bed with you every night.

As you might expect, we have slept some nights on these problems. Through research and testing, with creativity, craft and commitment, we have developed an innovative and much safer solution called Horizontal.

Horizontal is a sleeping solution for informed, compassionate people. Properly understood, compassion is not an emotion, it is an action. When we recognize something is seriously wrong and want to help, we take action, often with others, but always for others. Our action is our compassion.

Our action is our compassion.

Horizontal’s actions, creating a healthier, environmentally responsible sleep solution, re-conceptualizing how sleep products are made in the 21st century, deep diving into our supply chain, finding like minded allies around the world, creating ways to support our community partners, making a superior product with a light footprint, responding to our customer’s real needs, all align to change the way humans sleep. Most important, we provide our clients with a lifelong, satisfying night life on the terms they aspire to.

Our aspirations to work with Nature and to embed our ethical stance into our design process emancipated our thinking; allowing us to imagine design solutions outside the boundaries of the conventional bed/mattress industry. In order to arrive in a better place, we began with different and better ends in mind. These are our four design standards:

1. The products we design and make shall comfort and inspire our clients.
2. The products we design and make shall be borrowed from and later returned safely to Earth.
3. The products we design and make shall not harm human beings present and future.
4. The products we design and make shall be of long lasting quality and beauty.

Beginning at the end may appear backwards, but it’s essential to achieve our goals; sleeping environments that restore and inspire humans; healthy indoor environments free of VOCs and other chemical contaminants; an end to the many illnesses induced by corporations; outdoors, air to breathe that is simply air; water without micro-plastics and chemical effluent; real food without ‘stuff’ in it; rapid transition from fossil fuels to natural, cyclical energy solutions; and market success for products and companies that create long-lasting products with light footprints that do not compromise the lives of our descendants.

All, beautiful outcomes.

– Len Laycock

Author’s Note: All facts and information referenced in the Why Now? series, including facts and information about chemicals and their impacts on human health and environment, have been drawn from previously published sources in the European Union, United States of America, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Sweden, Germany and India. Sources include national and state government documents, government funded agencies, national and international corporations, peer reviewed research from universities, the industrial safety industry, material data safety sheets, worker’s compensation board records, articles published in major newspapers, articles published by national and international news reporting services, published authors respected in their fields, and reports and studies published by reputable nonprofits and environmental organizations.