Certified Sustainable Office Furniture and Equipment

Recently I was in the market for a computer chair for home use.  I headed to a second-hand store in my neighborhood and found a chair that was in mint condition.  It was manufactured by the HON Company, in Muscatine, Iowa.  I decided to check up on HON to find out if my chair materials had recycled content and what the company might be doing in the area of environmental responsibility.  Quite a lot, I discovered.  HON started its environmental journey more than sixty years ago by focusing on waste reduction.  One of its first product lines was made of recycled scrap metal.  Since then, HON has become a leader in the use of renewable plant resources, in adopting technologies that meet LEED low emissions requirements, and in the use of post-consumer wood waste.  Click here to learn more about what this remarkable company is doing to promote sustainable manufacturing and business practices. 

I was curious to know more about office furniture in general.  What information is available to buyers of office equipment and furniture that will help them make more environmentally-aware decisions?  How does the industry regulate itself and set standards for manufacturers?  When our office purchases a computer chair or an acoustical panel, can we be sure that it will meet LEED certification levels? 

Drum roll, please!  The Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturer’s Association (BIFMA) is the industry’s organization that develops voluntary standards “that support safe, healthy, and sustainable environments.”  BIFMA developed sustainability guidelines in 2005 which provide a roadmap to establish or expand an environmental management system and business practices.  The association has continued to actively lead efforts to promote environmental and social responsibility in product manufacturing. 

Of particular focus in recent years has been the development of multi-attribute sustainability standards and the means of communicating the environmental impacts of products to the customer.  The result is the ANSI/BIFMA e3 Furniture Sustainability Standard and what is called the “level®™ Certification Program.”  "level®" is the first open, consensus-based sustainability standard and certification program for the furniture industry using the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) process.  This is a major advance, and welcome news to those of us concerned with meeting compliance requirements of green procurement laws and policies and LEED certification. The website pages are reader-friendly and there is a searchable database of current furniture and equipment products that meet the third-party “level” certification. 

The BIFMA website is your gateway to all this information.  The BIFMA Sustainability Guidelines document is available by clicking here.  There is a charge for a copy of the ANSI/BIFMA e3 standard, which can be ordered from the list of standards on BIFMA’s website.  Click here to see the list.