Whalen Furniture
Evaluation Completed:
April 14, 2025
Bedroom
Kitchen
More Affordable
Kids
Adults
Evaluation Summary
Company Insights
Whalen Furniture is a brand that is part of Living Styles Group, which is owned by the company Fung Group. This company owns several “groups” or collections of multiple consumer brands. Hilde’s standard operating procedure is to evaluate parent companies rather than individual brands. But in cases like these we find it is more helpful for consumers to have information about the group. The ratings included on this evaluation page are based on the group’s scores. You can read more about why we think this approach is more helpful for consumers on our blog.
The furniture group Living Style includes brands that are sold at places like Costco (e.g. Whalen, Bayside) they also appear to do lots of private label manufacturing for many other companies with house brands like Target (e.g. Threshold). Overall, we think the company has a solid foundation in place across most issues. And while much of their approach is focused on regulatory compliance, we do appreciate instances where they appear to be going beyond. For example, the company has eliminated PFAS from their upholstered products and is leaning into their use of certified wood and paper for their products and packaging. We hope their programs continue to mature and look forward to continued investment in ingredient safety and sustainability by the company.
Ingredient Safety
Foundational Gaps
Solid Baseline
Strong Performance
Hilde Likes
None Identified
Opportunities for Improvement
Adopting a comprehensive approach to ingredient safety
We would like to see this brand adopt a precautionary safer chemicals policy, use a publicly available Restricted Substances List, address sources of contaminants, and use laboratory testing to ensure purity and assess compliance
Benchmarking ingredient safety practices
We would like to see this company participate in the Chemical Footprint Project or similar initiative to help benchmark their policies and practices against other companies publicly share their results
Category Definition
Our ingredient safety evaluation criteria are designed to help us determine how a company measures, manages, and discloses, the use of chemicals of concern that may be present in raw materials, ingredients, manufacturing processes, and finished products.
Foundational Gaps
The company does not meet sufficient baseline criteria for this category and has many opportunities for improvement.
Solid Baseline
The company meets most of our basic criteria and sometimes demonstrates a deeper commitment than other companies on issues in this category.
Strong Performance:
The company appears to be a top performer in this evaluation category and exhibits leadership on one or more of the issues we evaluate.
Environmental Impact
Foundational Gaps
Solid Baseline
Strong Performance
Hilde Likes
None Identified
Opportunities for Improvement
Establishing programs to address environmental impacts
We think this company should establish credible efforts to measure and disclose their environmental impacts and create time bound goals to improve performance
Launching efforts to protect biodiversity & ecosyse
We would like to see this company take steps to understand and mitigate the impacts their operations, supply chain, or products have on biodiversity, nature, and ecosystems and communicate about them publicly
Category Definition
Our environmental impact reduction evaluation criteria are designed to help us determine how a company measures, manages, and discloses information about the impacts that their operations, products, and supply chain may have on our air, land, water, and ecosystems.
Foundational Gaps
The company does not meet sufficient baseline criteria for this category and has many opportunities for improvement.
Solid Baseline
The company meets most of our basic criteria and sometimes demonstrates a deeper commitment than other companies on issues in this category.
Strong Performance:
The company appears to be a top performer in this evaluation category and exhibits leadership on one or more of the issues we evaluate.
Worker Fairness
Foundational Gaps
Solid Baseline
Strong Performance
Hilde Likes
None Identified
Opportunities for Improvement
Filling gaps on people impacts
We believe this company should put credible efforts in place to ensure that their employees are treated fairly, that human rights are protected for people in their supply chain, raw materials are sourced responsibly, and publicly share info about their work
Category Definition
Our worker fairness evaluation criteria are designed to help us determine how a company measures, manages, and discloses information about the way they treat their employees, workers in their supply chain, and other stakeholders.
Foundational Gaps
The company does not meet sufficient baseline criteria for this category and has many opportunities for improvement.
Solid Baseline
The company meets most of our basic criteria and sometimes demonstrates a deeper commitment than other companies on issues in this category.
Strong Performance:
The company appears to be a top performer in this evaluation category and exhibits leadership on one or more of the issues we evaluate.
Accountability
Foundational Gaps
Solid Baseline
Strong Performance
Hilde Likes
None Identified
Opportunities for Improvement
Providing public disclosure and reporting
We think this company should start publishing regular annual reports on sustainability or ESG topics for consumers or other stakeholders and maintain a publicly available archive of past reports
Establishing good governance practices
We think this company should integrate sustainability into the business model and decision making while enabling accountability mechanisms at the executive and board level
Category Defition
Our corporate accountability evaluation criteria are designed to help us determine how a company integrates sustainability across their organization to help govern decision making and engage with external stakeholders in socially responsible ways.
Foundational Gaps
The company does not meet sufficient baseline criteria for this category and has many opportunities for improvement.
Solid Baseline
The company meets most of our basic criteria and sometimes demonstrates a deeper commitment than other companies on issues in this category.
Strong Performance:
The company appears to be a top performer in this evaluation category and exhibits leadership on one or more of the issues we evaluate.