*more coming soon*
Sustainable Luthiers: Individual luthiers and guitar making companies leading the way in sustainable guitar making and environmentally-conscious workshop practices
Company / Luthier |
Description |
Source / Link(s) |
Alquier Guitars builds guitars from bamboo (a carbon neutral, sustainable alternative to wood), FSC-certified non-tropical tonewoods, and non-toxic metals (notably titanium). French luthier Jean-Yves Alquier is the "driving force" behind Alquier Guitars and their sustainable and visionary designs. Alquier's years of research and focus on 'guitar ethics and the environment' earned him the Meilleur Ouvrier de France award, presented to him in 2015 by President Hollande, recognizing his innovation and artistry as an eco-friendly luthier (source). |
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Aristides Instruments began working on guitars made from Arium, a material developed by a team of Dutch scientists through 15 years of research in partnership with Technical University Delft. Arium, the core of Aristides guitars, is made of "different resins solid additives". (source) |
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Bedell Guitars has a "Seed to Song" Tonewood Certification Project, promising to use only salvaged dead/fallen trees, FSC-certified and CITES-compliant, legally acquired tonewoods, and trees that are harvested individually without disturbing the surrounding ecosystem. |
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Blackbird Guitars builds their "wood-free" El Captain guitars and Clara ukuleles from a material called Ekoa® and carbon fiber composites. Ekoa® is a "Natural flax linen fiber pre-impregnated (prepreg) with post-industry, plant-based resin" (source). Ekoa® is considered an "eco-friendly" alternative to the (typically exotic) tonewoods traditionally used in guitar making. |
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Born Guitars focuses on sustainability and tree re-planting in their guitar making process: "We use only sustainably-sourced woods for our guitars, We neutralize our carbon emissions by planting new trees, We plant a new hardwood tree for each guitar we sell, We donate 10% of net profits to reforestation projects and music education programs." (source) |
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Breedlove Guitars has a Tonewood Certification Program which ensures that Breedlove Guitars are made only with either salvaged, local fallen trees, trees individually harvested without damage to the surrounding ecosystem, or 'treasured tonewoods' that are CITES and Lacey Act compliant. |
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Bright Guitars, built by Will Bright, are all made with local North American woods (such as Maple, Alder, Ash, and Walnut). Bright Guitars focuses on sustainability in their building and tonewood selections, as well as their workshop practices, which includes an emphasis on recycling and using all possible wood and wood scraps. |
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Cole Clark Guitars are made with sustainable tonewoods harvested locally in Australia, such as Australian Blackwood and Queensland maple. The Cole Clark Guitars website includes an environmental statement (November 2015) describing the percentages of sustainable tonewoods used in their guitars. |
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Deadwood Guitar Company, based in Lexington, Georgia, re-purposes local fallen, dead trees in order to create unique guitars. The act of using local trees that would otherwise be used as firewood or discarded at the dump to make hand-crafted instruments is an art and a great example of tree-related sustainability and sustainable lutherie. Utilizing local sources of wood is also a more sustainable choice than using more traditional and exotic woods because of the impact of wood transport (due to the level of carbon emissions) on the environment. Deadwood Guitars have a 'natural' look and distinct sound and each is hand-crafted and made to order. |
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Flaxwood Guitars builds their guitars out of flaxwood, an environmentally sustainable material and alternative to traditional tonewoods that have become endangered and are going extinct. "Flaxwood is an innovative new tone material that is created by breaking the grain structure of natural wood and injection-molding it into shape together iwth an acoustically sensitive binding agent." (source) |
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Kelly Guitars are all made from 100% reclaimed lumber, and a new limited-edition series of "Bowery Guitars" are made from recycled pine timbers from demolished New York City buildings. |
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KLOS Guitars build their one-piece guitar bodies out of carbon fiber, a temperature- and humidity-resistant material, and their necks, bridges, and fingerboards from wood (such as Brazilian cherry, mahogany, and blackwood). |
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MADA Guitars (Mada Guitarrenbau Meisterbetrieb) builds acoustic guitars with hemp-cellulose bodies. |
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Maize Guitars (Dave Maize Acoustic Guitars) focuses on sustainably harvested tonewoods, non-endangered, and reclaimed woods. "Some of the woods I like to build with are Claro Walnut (urban tree removal), Redwood (building demolition), Bay Laurel (driftwood log), Sitka and Englemann Spruce (blowdowns or bug-killed trees), Red Cedar and Port Orford Cedar (fire-killed trees)." (source) |
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Martin Guitar's commitments to sustainability and the environment include "Martin's Greenprint" (their 'green' footprint at the Martin Factory in Nazareth, Pennsylvania that includes saving energy, reducing waste, and protecting the environment), their efforts to use FSC-certified woods in the making of their guitars, and their partnership in the #SaveElephants campaign with The Nature Conservancy. |
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Maton Guitars has been recognized for their commitment to sustainability with the City of Whitehorse's Most Sustainable Business and Innovation award and the Overall Sustainability Award in 2016. Maton Guitars promotes sustainable forestry and legal, sustainable timber procurement and utilizes local (Australian) timber, such as Blackwood, Queensland Maple, and Bunya. |
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McPherson Guitars have a carbon fiber guitar series, and their guitars are built by hand by a small staff of luthiers. |
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Modulus Graphite builds their bass guitars with carbon fiber necks and wood tops. |
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New Perspectives Music builds guitars from reclaimed wood and locally sourced woods. The luthier, artist, and "upcyclist" behind New Perspectives Music, Tim Sway, also has a website dedicated to sustainable arts. |
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Ovation Guitars builds instruments out of Lyrachord -- interwoven layers of glass filament and bonding resin. Charles Kaman, founder of Ovation Instruments, decided to put a team together to invent a new guitar in 1964, choosing aerospace engineers and technicians. One of their innovations was creating a synthetic back and a “parabolic” (round-back) shape. The first Ovation guitar debuted in November 1966, with a patented Lyrachord body. |
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Plank Guitars creates unique guitars and instruments out of found objects, like cookie tins and vintage cigar boxes, and uses only salvaged local woods for the other portions of the guitar. All of the electricity used to run the workshop is generated by solar and wind power. |
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Prisma Guitars are made from the wood of broken, recycled skateboards (layers of pressed hard rock maple wood). |
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RainSong Guitars are the makers of the world's first all-graphite acoustic guitar. John Decker was inspired to create a humidity- and moisture-resistant instrument after witnessing a solo guitarist get drenched in rain at a wedding in Hawaii. |
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Red Dog Guitars (John McNair), based out of Nevada, makes guitars out of vintage cigar boxes. |
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Riversong Guitars, located in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada, uses 100% domestic and sustainable woods to build their guitars. Some of their woods include black walnut, cherry, and Sitka spruce. |
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Seagull Guitars is committed to sustainability, powering their workshop with hydroelectricity, using only reclaimed woods to build their guitars, and working directly with "forestries that impose strict replanting models". (source) |
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Taylor Guitars, The Ebony Project. Bob Taylor of Taylor Guitars has long been a proponent of sustainability and 'green' guitar making. Taylor Guitars became the co-owner of an ebony sawmill in Cameroon, Africa in 2011, determined to improve the working conditions and sanitation at the sawmill, champion workers' rights and increase their wages, plant ebony trees (which are harvested for guitar making and traditionally used to create fretboards), educate the local workers about sustainable tree harvesting and workshop practices, and study the nutritional requirements of the ebony tree in order to help the trees flourish and thrive in their environment. The Ebony Project focuses its efforts on re-forestation and the re-planting of trees specifically harvested for the art of lutherie and also incentivizes the local sawmill workers to plant these slow-growing ebony trees by encouraging them to plant other faster-growing species of trees with medicinal and nutritional uses that benefit the entire community. The sustainability efforts made by Taylor Guitars and those involved with the Ebony Project (including the Congo Basin Institute and others) help ensure the survival of forests for future generations to be able to enjoy the gift of music through quality, artfully-crafted guitars. Taylor Guitars has been sourcing koa through Paniolo Tonewoods (a collaboration between Taylor Guitars and Pacific Rim Tonewoods) and making environmentally-friendly impacts through their 'green' sustainability practices in manufacturing their guitars. |
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Tyde Music uses some exotic woods but prefers to use local, reclaimed, and sustainable woods in the making of their instruments (source). Some materials include salvaged furniture scraps, materials reclaimed from local piers and landfills, and materials from contractors trying to reduce waste during remodels. Tyde Music currently makes ukuleles, guileles, cajon drums, didgeridoos, and music accessories. |
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Valenti Guitars uses tonewoods purchased from CITES- and Rainforest Alliance-certified suppliers for their instruments, and uses tonewoods that were acquired many years ago (rather than freshly-cut wood). Luthier Luigi Valenti describes the importance of considering sustainability on his web page about tonewoods. |
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Wallace Detroit Guitars is a guitar making company in Detroit, Michigan that uses reclaimed wood sourced through local non-profits who obtain the wood from local demolished buildings and then use the profit to restore historic buildings. The woods reclaimed from the buildings are woods that are determined to no longer have any other suitable purpose (for example, the wood is no longer suitable for re-building another home and would be destined for the dump or for firewood, if not for guitars), and thus the effort is to remain as sustainable as possible. Wallace Detroit Guitars often use responsibly harvested old growth pine from these buildings, which has a unique and 'vintage' sound. Wallace Detroit Guitars was founded in 2014 by Mark Wallace to "literally build guitars from Detroit history". |
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Yamaha focuses on sustainability in the making of their instruments and in their workplace practices. One example is Yamaha's use of bamboo as a sustainable alternative to traditional exotic tonewood. |
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Zero Impact Guitars creates customize-able, unique guitars out of recycled materials, such as cigar boxes. |
