A Better World
The most recent webinar I attended was a Better World by Herman Miller. Since 1950, they have been leading the way for a sustainable future and business, engaging on ways to take care of our planet and the communities around them.
The webinar was hosted by Oliver Cripps, Product Environmental specialist at Herman Miller. His role is to lead the Design for Environment Programme in Europe, Africa and middle east. The programme helps guide sustainability for new and existing Miller products, monitors compliance and provides specialist advice to clients. One thing we must note, is that Herman Miller have environmental data for all of their products and they pride themselves on the transparency of that data. If you have ay questions or concerns about a product you can access that information through us, or through Herman Millers website.
In addition to products, community projects play a massive part in “intentional design” - a phrase used to suggest Miller designs should they “give more than they receive.” Some great stories of their community projects include:
A Sweeter Solution - solving a problem of wasps in a way that was kind to the earth. This gave collection of bees, a sweet honey result and a story to tell.
A Gift of Hope - A project set up for women in Hati to provide them with opportunities. Donating fabric scraps and offcuts, these woman are able to create their own products and provide for their families.
Olympic Hawk - A natural way to chase away a seagull problem. Willow the trained Harris Hawk was brought in to fly and hang out at Herman Miller, keeping the problem away and keeping it natural and humane.
When we visited Herman Miller, Melksham back in November last year, myself and Stephen actually seen Willow the hawk and her friend in action. We were confused at first, but it was great to actually see them practice a story they share first hand.
One question that gets asked a lot is what small changes can a business make to help the environment? And also probably a question Herman Miller get asked a lot too. There are so many ways to make change, but the smallest ones can also have a very large impact. Miller have already got trials underway including: reducing single use plastic, removing plastic straws, providing staff with re-usable water bottles, and also on our visit we noticed they had replaced all coffee cups with re-suable bamboo ones instead. But a notable change is introducing re-usable packaging which already has reduced their cardboard consumption by 23 tonnes!
But to analyse those bigger changes, Oliver suggested in the webinar that nearly all businesses would benefit from using a circular economy diagram. Using the same format, Herman Miller have created the following circular economy objectives:
Using renewable sources
Increase resource efficiency
Reduce waste
Use closed loop systems, returning off cuts and waste back to suppliers
Designing long lasting sustainable products
Exploring Innovative low impact materials
Working to create a second life for products
If one things for sure, Herman Miller are continuously trying to improve their environmental outlook. They have created an excellent document focusing on so much more than a blog post can entail.
The full report “Designing for the Future: A Better World” can be found here .
There is also more information on Herman Millers Sustainability Snapshot