Evaluation of greener
design alternatives for
office furniture at
affordable price points
By: Allen Luccitti REPORT #SSIL13‐005 STAPLES SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION LAB Building 81, Room 3260 • 111 Lomb Memorial Dr. • Rochester, NY 14623
Evaluation of greener design alternatives for office furniture at affordable price points Allen Luccitti REPORT #SSIL13‐005 STAPLES SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION LAB Building 81, Room 3260 • 111 Lomb Memorial Dr. • Rochester, NY 14623 585. 475.5379 • www.sustainability.rit.edu Funding for this research program was provided by the Staples Sustainable Innovation Laboratory and the Golisano Institute of Sustainability within the Rochester Institute of Technology. The author gratefully acknowledges Ms. Cheryl Mullen and the Staples team for providing significant product information and Mr. Jake Swenson for reviewing the manuscript. Executive Summary
The manufacturing, use, and disposal of every product has unintended negative impacts on the world
around us, from the mining of raw materials, to the depletion of natural resources such as water, energy
and fossil fuels, or through harmful emissions to air, land, or water. Though every product has an impact,
the type of impact and when in the life cycle the impact occurs can be different for different product
categories. Products such as a computer server are nearly always running and therefore its energy use is
the most significant impact, whereas the impacts of a disposable paper towel are mostly in the raw
material acquisition and disposal. The Staples Sustainable Innovation Laboratory (SSIL) within the
Golisano Institute for Sustainability (GIS) at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) whose core
mission is to research and help accelerate and deploy innovative and sustainable business practices
investigated the environmental “hot spots” in office furniture. The main focus of the research was
identifying the potential design practices that may reduce or mitigate the environmental impacts.
The furniture manufacturing industry has significant worldwide impact and is a major contributor to the
U.S. economy with U.S. furniture factory shipments of $23.2 billion in 2013. This industry produces a wide
range of furniture, including bookcases, cabinets, chairs, desks and filing cabinets. U.S. furniture imports
also increased 7.7% in 2013 to a total of $19.7 billion, with imports from China reaching $11.6 billion or 59
percent of the total furniture imported into the U.S.1 Sustainable design practices must therefore be
universally applied around the world.
Office furniture has many new and competing environmental claims in the marketplace; however, the
environmental preference landscape is clouded with the complexity of material types used, influence of
the U.S. green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environment (LEED), and
significant end-of-life management requirements. This project looked at the raw material choices, design
choices, manufacturing efficiency practices, end-of-life management, and multi-attribute industry
standards to identify the significant environmental impact areas across the life cycle. The environmental
impacts were considered in parallel with traditional design requirements such as cost/pricing, ergonomics,
durability, comfort, and aesthetics.
Several tasks were performed to identify the environmental impacts of office chairs, which were used as a
surrogate for the office furniture category. The first task performed was a literature review of current
practices and standards to better understand the current state of the industry, areas of concern and best
practices being applied. The literature review provided a framework for developing the design and
development recommendations of more sustainable office products.
Task 2 investigated current life-cycle assessments of office chairs to identify the life-cycle stages and
materials that had the largest impact or provided the best opportunity for improvement. Several
manufacturers of office chairs make publicly available life cycle assessments or environmental product
declarations which indicate the products life cycle impacts.
Task 3 was a detailed product and material assessment of three typical home office chairs. This
assessment included a complete disassembly analysis of each chair. The research and product
assessment performed in all three tasks resulted in a comparative methodology that can be adapted to
evaluate the environmental performance of numerous products. An example of the performance
1
D. French , FURNITURE PRODUCT: Imports climb 7.7% in 2013, Furniture Today, March 28, 2014,
http://www.furnituretoday.com/article/486752-furniture-product-imports-climb-7-7
Staples Sustainable Innovation Lab ‐ 5 ‐ Evaluation of greener design alternatives for office furniture at affordable price points SSIL13‐005 indicators selected to encompass the complete life cycle of a product and can be seen in Table 1. The
criteria are derived from sustainability standards commonly used in the furniture industry such as cradle to
cradle (C2C), Business institutional furniture manufacturers association (BIFMA), and product category
rules (PCR) for office furniture, plus include criteria developed during the course of the three project
tasks.




Material Impact
Free of Material Hazards
Preserve Natural Resources
Reduced Environmental Intensity
Manufacturing Excellence / Transparency
Energy efficient and benign processes
Reporting / Third Party Certifications
LCA/EPD available
Distribution
Packaging
Operability
User friendliness and ergonomics
Life Extension
Easy caring and cleaning
Length of guarantee
Ease of Repair
EOL Recovery
Ease of dismantling
Readily Recyclable
Recycling/reuse instructions or service
Environmental
benchmark
Excellent
Good
Fair
Poor
Task Chair
Criteria
Manager Chair
Table 1: Rating Criteria and Product Comparison
  



  
NA
NA
NA


  
NA
NA
NA
  
 
  
 

NA
NA
NA
  
 


Results show that the home office chairs assessed had significant room for improvement in most
environmental categories, and lacked the transparency necessary to fully determine the total
environmental footprint. The home office chairs had mixed materials that were difficult to separate, lacked
material identification to enable recycling, and were difficult to disassemble all of which would contribute
to significant end-of-life impacts. Some of the materials used including polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and
Staples Sustainable Innovation Lab ‐ 6 ‐ Evaluation of greener design alternatives for office furniture at affordable price points SSIL13‐005 plywood with unknown sources of wood and unknown levels of formaldehyde have significant potential
impacts on the environment and on human health. Some design recommendations are summarized in
Table 2 below.
Table 2: Home Office Chair Design Recommendations
Criteria
1
Material
Impact
2
Manufacturing
Excellence
and
Transparency
3
Life Extension
4
End of Life
Recovery
Recommendation
Free of Material Hazards
 Eliminate PVC typically found in chair upholstery (faux leather, PVC
coated mesh). Consider more benign materials that can provide the
same function such as polyurethane.
 Make sure that the plywood used for seat and back structure does not
contain formaldehyde.
 Materials should not out-gas
Preserve Natural Resources
 Assure that the plywood is sourced from socially responsible forests.
Reduced Environmental Intensity
 Specify use of materials with post-consumer recycled content.
Reporting / Third Party Certifications
 Evaluate supplier reporting and public declarations. Identify gaps. Much
of the environmental impact of a product is in the supply chain, and
information on supplier environmental releases, work practices, and
process materials such as cutting fluids, cleaners, coatings, paints, and
lubricants were not disclosed.
Length of Guarantee
Provide support to maximize useful life. Benchmark service life is 15 years.
 Foam cushioning fatigue is the major contributor limiting chair life and is
the most significant customer complaint. Recommend evaluating foams
with higher impact force deflection (IFD) ratings to extend the chair life.
Ease of Repair
 Chair should be designed with standardized parts to enable simplified
repair processes.
o Casters, armrests, base, seat plate w/adjustment controls.
Ease of Dismantling
 Make disassembly instructions publicly available.
 Enable materials to be separated to recycling levels using standard
tools and with no special training in a reasonable amount of time.
Readily Recyclable
 Do not join dissimilar materials. Avoid processes such as over-molding
plastics onto metals.
 Parts should be labeled with material type to facilitate material
segregation.
Staples Sustainable Innovation Lab ‐ 7 ‐ Evaluation of greener design alternatives for office furniture at affordable price points SSIL13‐005