Sustainability

What is Sustainability?

Sustainability is choosing, recycling and reusing materials to protect the environment and reduce the consumption of valuable resources such as energy, forests and water. Recycling, manufacturing fuel efficient engines, applying building practices that reduce energy waste, and producing remanufactured products are ways to meet our present needs without compromising resources for future generations. The practices of reusing, remanufacturing, recycling and incorporating reusable resources are key to achieving sustainability.

What is LEED?

Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) is an internationally recognized, green building certification program designed to reduce our carbon footprint on the environment by reducing CO2 emissions, saving water and energy, and improving indoor environmental quality. Verified by an independent third party, LEED certification assures consumers that the company or manufacturer they have chosen will incorporate environmentally sound strategies by choosing and reusing resources to reduce our impact on the environment. LEED provides a comprehensive framework for designing, constructing and manufacturing economical, safe and environmentally friendly products.

Integrate

Roberts Office Furniture Concepts is your resource for creating a green office environment. We make it easy to incorporate sustainability by helping you design a functional and ergonomic workspace using a combination of remanufactured and new office furniture and systems.

The first step toward sustainability is working with a company like Roberts that operates and maintains local manufacturing facilities. This enhances your efforts toward sustainability by reducing pollution and decreasing fuel consumption.

Second, talk with Roberts’ expert design team about their remanufactured office furniture and systems, which are custom-built to your specifications to be indistinguishable from brand new and provide a better fit and personalized performance. They represent a form of “recycling” using environmentally conscious materials and methods.

When our expert office design team incorporates the durable, warrantied remanufactured Steelcase, Herman Miller, and other brand-name office furniture that would otherwise end up in a landfill, your workspace becomes functionally, durably and aesthetically sustainable and green. That’s because incorporating sustainable remanufactured office furniture products from Roberts Office Furniture Concepts decreases energy use, reduces waste generation, and produces cost savings.

Another option for incorporating sustainability is the Roberts Office Furniture Concepts trade-in program. As our customers grow from small offices to larger spaces, they can receive credit for their used office furniture and apply it toward customized purchases. Roberts will meticulously and systematically restore it to functional, like-new condition.

Approach

Roberts Office Furniture Concepts has more than 20 years of experience remanufacturing the highest quality office furniture by recycling parts from original equipment manufacturers and combining the “best of the best.” Roberts evaluates every line available to determine which provide the best in system packages and individual components, then uses only quality pieces from each manufacturer to provide a superior, sustainable product that is indistinguishable from new — and warrantied.

Nearly 93 percent of the remanufactured products from Roberts Office Furniture Concepts are post-consumer recycled. Roberts fabricates functional office furniture and systems that otherwise would end up in a landfill, by purchasing furniture and components at the end of their useful life and meticulously and systematically restoring them. As a result, Roberts reduces the waste stream by keeping products out of landfills.

We navigate several steps to accomplish this goal. First, we provide a $30 million inventory from which our customers can choose, one that is frequently replenished by purchasing whole buildings’ worth of office furniture. Then, each piece is completely dismantled, and every part is inspected. Any part requiring repair is fixed and, if it is beyond repair, it is replaced with a component equal to or often better than the original.

Parts are then cleaned and refurbished locally, which can include painting, staining or our own advanced baked-on powder-coating process, which results in a durable, attractive and long-lasting finish. At Roberts Office Furniture Concepts, we use LEED compliant low-emitting paints, sprays, solvents and glues in the fabrication process. We also use natural materials, including composite wood and Agrifiber such as wheat board, straw board, and plywood for panels, work surfaces, shelves and other products for designing and assembling a green office plan.

The final products are high-quality office furniture “indistinguishable from new” at a reduced cost. In fact, remanufactured products generally save customers at least 30 percent for the same or customized features that are equal to or of better quality than new. Roberts’ office products are earth-friendly and sustainable and include countertops, wall units, base cabinets, work surfaces, conference tables, and complete workspace systems.

Benefits

Remanufactured office furniture and workplace systems are viable and sound solutions for your business that offer significant benefits.

First, purchasing remanufactured office furniture from Roberts Office Furniture Concepts makes good business sense economically, because you’ll receive high-quality, “indistinguishable from new” furniture at a great price.

Second, remanufactured office furniture and workspace systems are customizable to your needs, regardless of the size or type of your business or organization, even at the reduced price.

Additionally, remanufactured office furniture contributes to a sustainable and eco-friendly environment since remanufacturing conserves an estimated 1.02 million pounds of natural raw materials annually, which is enough to fill 155,000 railroad cars to capacity.

Remanufacturing begins with retaining as much of the former product as possible, particularly its durable and long-lasting steel frame. This saves not only the manufacturing costs associated with new furniture, but also the raw materials, natural resources and energy used to create the steel.

According to an EPA estimate, in 1995 it cost $93 million to trash 2.9 million tons of office furniture at $32 per ton. Steel from remanufactured furniture can be retained and reused, reducing landfill overload and saving cost per pound.

Additionally, one year of remanufacturing helps fight global warming by reducing carbon emissions by 815,000 pounds, and can save 10,700,000 barrels of crude oil a year. That’s because remanufacturing reduces the need to produce new steel, which is one of the largest manufacturing processes associated with global warming.

Because many of the earth’s reserves are not renewable, remanufacturing is a practical and effective way to conserve our resources for future generations. Remanufacturing saves on labor and manufacturing costs, uses fewer raw materials and saves energy.