Waste Not, Want Not: How The Circular Economy Can Be Central To Every Office Redesign
Insight from Michael Taylor, Managing Director of Mitie Waste
As the UK prepares for the end of lockdown restrictions, many businesses are thinking about when and how they bring their employees back to the workplace. However, with many colleagues having spent over a year working remotely, the traditional office-based model will likely be replaced with a flexible or hybrid model that allows employees to work primarily from home and use their time in the office for brainstorming, networking, training or client meetings.
As the office becomes a space to promote collaboration, many businesses are now considering if their sites are suited for this new purpose. Many companies are now thinking about replacing desks with meeting rooms and breakout areas, bringing forward the question of what to do with the furniture that’s no longer needed.
Throwing away furniture is expensive and has a negative impact on the environment, but embracing the circular economy offers a cost-efficient and environmentally friendly alternative. By reupholstering, selling or donating the furniture, it can be given a second lease of life, helping to preserve the planet’s natural resources while also achieving significant financial savings for the business.
At Mitie, we’ve used our facilities and waste management expertise to help our customers repurpose over 12,000 tonnes worth of furniture, the equivalent to 1,000 London buses, since 2016. Through this experience, we’ve identified four key steps that businesses should consider to prevent unnecessary landfill waste. By reusing as much furniture as possible and recycling only those pieces that can’t be used anymore, it’s possible to reconfigure an entire office without condemning anything to the bin.
1 Make A List Before Calling The Moving Truck
Before the pandemic, many businesses offered some flexibility for where employees work, however, for the most part, colleagues that now work remotely used to spend the majority of their working hours on site. While many of us have realised there can be benefits of spending some of our working time at home, most businesses are now planning a return to their workspaces in some form. However, with this return comes a number of questions and competing objectives: how can we future proof the office, without a large expenditure? How does agile working fit with our company’s culture? And, perhaps most importantly, what do our colleagues want from their future workspace?
Before getting too far down the track, businesses should take a step-back to consider what model is best for their employees and how they want to use their workspaces to support alternative ways of working. Employee surveys to understand their preferences in terms of where they work and how they want to use the workplace will provide data on how many employees are expected to come into the office each day, helping determine the office space and number of desks that will be needed.
With this information to hand, Facilities Managers should take the time to create an inventory of the furniture they need, laying out the items already available, and in good condition, that should continue to be used. For businesses with multiple sites, it’s important to approach the entire estate in one go, so that furniture can be moved between locations as needed, rather than buying new items. This will help ensure that businesses are using all available resources which will, in turn, reduce the impact on the environment. And, with the COVID pandemic seeing many facilities managers being asked to deliver more with tighter budgets, this approach also helps to cut costs.
2 Bringing The Leftovers Home
As occupancy levels and the purpose of the office changes, many businesses will find themselves wondering what to do with the surplus of items such as desks and office chairs, which are either going into storage or gathering dust in an office.
This challenge has come at the same time as many office-based employees have moved to remote working, in turn requiring their own office furniture at home. While many individuals chose to solve this issue by simply taking their workplace furniture with them, this solution isn’t as simple as it may seem. Nine out of ten office chairs do not meet domestic fire safety requirements; however, reupholstering can ensure pieces are compliant, helping keep employees safe and limiting potential liability for businesses in the case of any fires.
Although this might add to the work, by fixing rather than replacing, not only can businesses help eliminate waste, they can also save money as remanufactured ‘home worker packs’, including a desk and a DSE compliant chairs, can often cost less than purchasing new high-quality furniture.
3 Spreading The Joy
Once it’s clear that the business has been able to reuse all the furniture it needs for its own purposes, it’s time to consider who might be interested in the remaining pieces. For instance, many firms use services, such as Waste Match, to help them find charities to which they can donate their surplus furniture, allowing companies to contribute to the local community. And, in cases where charities don’t need furniture, businesses can sell the pieces they have available and donate the funds to support good causes. Last year we worked closely with one of our customers to donate office equipment that was no longer needed, helping to furnish the new office of a local charity. Our customer saved on disposal and storage costs and the charity was able to ensure its funds were focused on supporting its cause – a win-win for everyone involved.
4 Make Do And Mend
With sustainability at the top of many businesses’ agenda, companies must embrace the circular economy to keep the furniture or its materials in use for as long as possible. Having reupholstered chairs and fixed tables by using parts from other items, businesses might end up with spare pieces. Many of these parts are still functioning, so we advise our customers save them for those common cases where the drawer runner gets stuck or the locker’s hinge breaks.
But, as much as we try, we’ll eventually end up with those broken and damaged pieces, such as broken desk legs, that cannot be used anymore. Many of these pieces can be recycled or sent to specialised waste management plants where they can be converted into energy, producing zero landfill waste.
With the UK looking to implement a green recovery, it’s important that businesses planning for the hybrid model of working look beyond how to reorganise their office floor and consider the impact that these changes will have on the environment. Landfill waste and loss of materials can have negative effects on the planet, so as we begin to return to workplaces businesses must do their part and focus on the circular economy by ensuring that any spare furniture is reused or recycled. Not only will this play an important role in the fight against climate change, it can also save some cash which is an important consideration for many companies in the current climate.
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