🌟 Guido Loeffler - ENFJ, SDG 3 & 10
💻 Connect:
💌 Email: guido@innatefurniture.co.nz
🪵 Website: innatefurniture.co.nz
📱 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/guido-loeffler
📍Location: Christchurch, New Zealand
Personality Type: ENFJ
Favourite SDGs: #3 Good Health & Well-Being | #10 Reducing Inequalities
🌿 A LIFE SHAPED BY ROOTS, TIMBER & PURPOSE
Born in Moshi, Tanzania, at the base of Kilimanjaro, Guido spent his early childhood in the Netherlands. His accent still shifts between Dutch and American depending on who he’s speaking to. His name Guido even comes from ancient Germanic roots. It means “man of the forest”… a coincidence that feels less like coincidence once you hear what he does now.
After immigrating to New Zealand at age 10, Guido grew up between cultures, languages and worldviews. The Dutch directness stuck with him. He loves critical thinking, the willingness to question systems and peeling things back to first principles. Soon, he absorbed the softness of Māori “seven-generations” thinking, the Kiwi emphasis on feeling good, and the global lens from family in the U.S.
It shows in the way he talks. The way he builds. The way he works.
🌍 SEEING SYSTEMS… THEN GETTING INSIDE THEM
Guido’s sustainability journey didn’t start in a workshop. It started as a teenager in Lincoln, New Zealand. He was angry, confused, and deeply frustrated by how the world handled inequality, animal welfare, and the climate - and rightly so!
Like many young idealists, he tried activism first. Guido joined the Green Party at university and visited parliament. He was part of the Occupy movement, camping out in the city trying to get politicians to listen and think long-term.
But eventually, like so many of his peers, he realised protesting wasn’t enough.
"It’s good for awareness… but it doesn’t address the core drivers. The real power lies in business and finance."
So he shifted from shouting at the system to working inside it. Guido became the kind of entrepreneur who proves that doing good is not only possible, but profitable. If companies will always follow incentives, Guido decided with logic: Redesign the incentives.
This philosophy led him to wood, to timber, to building a business that embodies his values.
🪵 INNATE FURNITURE: LOCAL TIMBER, LOCAL STORIES, LOCAL IMPACT
Guido now crafts bespoke pieces from sustainably sourced New Zealand timber, especially tōtara and beech.
Tōtara is widely misunderstood. Many people still think “native = don’t touch”, but Guido explains and educates.
New Zealand’s forestry laws are strict, transparent and carefully managed. Through continuous cover forestry, a percentage of trees can be harvested. This mimicks natural disturbances like slips or windfall. Everything is GPS-tracked, the canopy remains, new seedlings thrive and create biodiversity.
Tōtara is also astonishingly abundant.
“Farmers often struggle to hold them back. They’re everywhere once you know how to spot them.”
The result? A sustainable timber source. An income stream for farmers struggling financially. A material that can be harvested and processed locally. Guido and his cofounder Nick turn timber into long-lasting pieces that connect people to the place they live.
Guido isn’t "just" making furniture. He’s rebuilding a circular, regenerative system… one tabletop at a time. Log by log, future forests will grow due to his sharp mind - not Dutch courage 😂.
Truth cannot be silenced - and so, others are noticing. The new Christchurch Stadium has asked Guido to create their wooden grazing boards and catering platters. This 6 figure contract was signed not because Guido is the cheapest, but because his philosophy is the real product.
Soon, Innate will drop the "furniture" part of the name - as Guido has already scouted another underused resource ... Wool! Starting with a beautiful wool beanbag, we can only wonder what he will create next!
🪂 FLYING FROM KILIMANJARO: ADVENTURE, RISK & MEANING
Alongside timber, Guido has another love: paragliding.
The story is wild. It starts with a Friday afternoon. A friend saying, “I’m off to Queenstown for a paragliding course.” And Guido answering, “I’m in… can I join?”
Within a day he was running off a hill with a wing for the first time - and got hooked. It felt like flying - silent, birdlike, pure. Soon he and three friends have an audacious idea. What if we hike up Mount Kilimanjaro and paraglide off the summit?
They trained for nearly a year. They filmed the journey (shoutout to Ryan Wilkes). They fundraised creatively until the last moment - raising $43,000 to support schools in Tanzania.
Guido almost didn’t make it. A serious back injury put him in a wheelchair two months before departure. A lung infection left him unable to speak during the hike to the top.
But he pushed on, summit day dawned, and the team prepared to fly.
Then tragedy struck. A fatal accident on takeoff. The entire mission stopped. No further flights allowed. Everyone walked down the mountain - a 12-hour descent after eight days of climbing.
It took Guido a long time to process. But it didn’t destroy his love of paragliding.
"If you go doing what you love… there’s never a full loss there.”
He still flies today.
💚 THE SCIENCE OF LONGEVITY… HE LIVES IT DAILY
If sustainability shapes Guido’s work, longevity shapes his daily life.
He’s curious, disciplined, and deeply intentional about health -physical and mental.
His routines include:
• A nutrient-packed morning health mix (fruits, nuts, hemp, turmeric, spirulina).
• Regular yoga and strength training.
• Evening stretching.
• Saunas for detoxification and mental clarity.
• A lifestyle built around movement, not intensity.
• A love for gardening, grounding and tending the soil.
He studied the Blue Zones and noticed that the world’s longest-living people don’t rely on extreme fitness. They have daily natural movement, sunlight, gardening, social connection, and meaningful work.
He’s building a life that supports him not just for decades… but for the kind of decades that feel good.
🧘 GUIDO’S 30-DAY CHALLENGE
When asked to choose one daily habit for a 30-day challenge, Guido didn’t hesitate:
30 minutes of meditation before bed. A way to calm the mind, slow the noise, and let insights rise naturally. His reward at the end? A celebratory dinner at Miss Peppercorn in Sumner - his favourite Szechuan restaurant.
✨ THE HEART OF IT ALL
Guido’s story winds through Tanzania, the Netherlands and New Zealand. Through activism, frustration, forests, flying, ecology, craft, health and purpose. Through directness and softness. Through curiosity and courage.
And at the centre is one simple belief:
"Everyone has the opportunity to have a positive impact on their surroundings. Think about what you purchase. It’s your vote.”
Guido is living up to his name "the man of the forest"'. Not by disappearing into nature, but by helping others reconnect to it. With timber, storytelling, sustainable choices, and handcrafted pieces that will last for seven - or more - generations.