One of the hallmarks of efficient resource use and true sustainability is a commitment at the local level. Sure, in this age of high-speed transport and broad swaths of truck-friendly asphalt, it's easy just to ship stuff from the cheapest producer to the most-monied consumer, but the reality of dwindling fossil fuels and a sweltering planet is fast making that business model obsolete.

Slide sofa. Designed by Anna Hart. Manufactured by MARK.

This is a long way of saying that it's high time we do all we can to support our local economy, and, flipping this around a bit, that it makes good sense for manufacturers to identify themselves and their products with their home region. Such localized affiliation gives them a distinctive persona that makes their products more memorable. Case in point: Alvar Aalto's Artek Lounger is forever connected to the timber industry of Finland, Hansgrohe! has a memorable lineage in the water wheels of Germany's Black Forest. Adding a third to this enviable roster... Mark of Cornwall has staked its very name on this kind of localized affiliation: "In the 21st century, Cornwall is once again making its mark nationally and internationally as a leader in sustainable design, green technologies, and renewable energy. It also has a thriving creative community, with the highest number of art, design and media practitioners outside London. Cornwall is also about enjoyment - people come here to relax and savor the best things in life: stunning scenery, fresh air, fantastic food, and the infinite charms of the great outdoors. Life in Cornwall beats to a rhythm of its own, and MARK's range captures this for you."

Sounds like it might be a tough crowd in storied Cornwall, but I bet the Slide Sofa by Anna Hart (co-founder of Mark, along with John Miller) passes muster. A product that caught eyes at September's 100% Design in London, the Slide Sofa joins a growing pantheon of dual-purpose furnishings that exude functionality yet compel with pure aesthetics. Like Globus' Mobile Office Pod and the Sculptural Chair, the Slide has a built-in desk of sorts (actually two) in the form of the expansive arm rests at either end, which "can be used as a writing surface or side table, or make the perfect headrest for lounging in total comfort." But the Slide Sofa is not some fly-by-night gimmick, like Jean Marie Massaud's Aspen Sofa and Bjorn Meier's Shift, Slide possesses the clean lines and compact forms of the best Modern furnishings. The sofa is versatile as well, with two lengths (85 or 68 inches); models geared towards "domestic" as well as "contract" use (I'm guessing the feather-stuffed number is for residential and the upholstered foam is for commercial-but personally I'll go rigid foam every time); and a variety of fabrics including those customized to the client's choice.

No one can dispute that the Slide Sofa has both traditional and cutting-edge elements, and that its regionalized affiliation suggests an ethos of sustainability, so perhaps all that remains is to connect it to the place of its birth. But perhaps I should leave this to manufacturers Miller and Hart (in the interest of full disclosure, I've only been to London, never having graced Cornwall's scenic shores): "Cornwall fires the imagination. It has for a long time. From the famous St Ives and Newlyn schools of artists drawn here for the space, clarity and special quality of the light in the late 19th century to the pioneering inventions of the great industrial age that were exported across the world and shape the way we live today." Hmmm ... the fusion of a venerated aesthetic tradition with an innovative functionality, sounds suspiciously like the Slide Sofa to me.