The Green Hierarchy
Not all office furniture is made equal. Depending upon the process, your office furniture may be harming the environment. The sustainability hierarchy of office furniture offers comparisons between the levels of sustainable office furniture options, and shows you in order of the most sustainable to the least.
As-is / Re-use: Re-use is the pinnacle of sustainable office furniture solutions. Taking an existing product, cleaning it, making minor repairs, and re-using it the way it is. This solution gives products a new life, with minimal use of resources. There is no solution out there that is more green.
Remanufactured / Re-use blend: This option is similar to remanufacturing, only better. Like remanufacturing, most products are stripped to their core. The difference is that some of the original components are still like new and can be reused, without any processing other than a good cleaning. Those re-used components will be blended with the remanufactured products to create a truly green solution.
Remanufacturing: Remanufacturing is a very environmentally friendly option. Here's why: products are taken back and a simple but complete "re-build" process occurs. This process involves the dismantling of cores, surface preparation, repair, re-finishing, reupholstering, and re-lamination. The customer selects their desired finishes and gets "like-new" product, saves money, and saves the environment.
The key here is that remanufacturing is a re-build process which involves far fewer steps and much less energy than full recycling processes such as with plastic, and paper goods which are basically converted back into natural materials for manufacturing.
Where does the core material come from? From your office and others like it! Old workstations are exchanged for remanufactured product from Davies inventory, saving our customer's money when compared to new furniture, and diverting waste from landfills. You even save the disposal costs for roll-off while helping to solve our solid waste dilemma.
Remanufactured / New blend: This blended solution combines all of the benefits of remanufacturing with new enhancement components. The workstations are completely remanufactured and new components, such as, glass stack-ons, ergonomic retrofits, and computer support products that are added to them. This is till a very green solution.
Recycling: Recycling entails breaking products down to basic materials, melting down steel, recycling glass and plastic, and reusing those materials to create new products. Recycling does save natural resources but the amount of energy and other resources required to complete the process is not much better than the original manufacturing process.
New Product Manufacturing: This option is located at the bottom of the Sustainability Hierarchy of Office Furniture. The beginning of a product's long life cycle is also the least environmentally friendly. The amount of natural resources extracted from the earth and energy required to manufacture a product is staggering. The amount of waste and pollution associated with the production is even more surprising. That's just half of the story.
It will almost certainly end up in a landfill, contributing to the build-up of solid waste and inevitably an increase in harmful emissions. Choosing remanufactured office furniture extends the life cycle of perfectly good products and keeps them out of the dump, making remanufactured a green, and cost-effective, office furniture option.
Make your workspace dreams a reality
Mix-and-match any of our product offerings for a myriad of sustainable options that save you on money, energy, and to save the environment. We love what we do, and encourage anyone to come to our facilities to see how we create sustainable remanufactured office furniture solutions.
