The Double Bottom Line and Environment SIGs, co-sponsored by the Yale SOM Alumni Association, invited Jesse Johnson, SOM and FES ’01, to talk about how he started his environmentally friendly furniture company.

When he set about furnishing his Manhattan apartment, he looked for furniture and fabrics that wouldn't harm the environment or his own health. While shopping, he asked questions such as: Did the companies harvesting the wood replant the forests they logged? Were the fabrics treated with nontoxic dyes? Were the fibers organically grown? The answers were always no. Jesse in the end decided to start Q collection, a company that creates the kind of furniture and textiles he was looking for. (Q stands for quercus, Latin for oak.)