Changing your workplace is a big investment. But it doesn’t have to cost the earth.
There may be residual value in your unwanted furniture that can help offset your project costs and reduce your impact on the environment.
Each year in the UK, 1.8 million office chairs and 1.2 million office desks end up in landfill. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Whether you’re moving to a new office, refurbishing, or freeing up space, IE’s workplace services team can advise you on the best way to leverage any value in your assets while minimising the environmental impact of change by keeping them in the circular economy.
Good for your pocket, good for the environment
If you have furniture you no longer need, we can buy it back, reuse, rehome it, or build something new out of it.
The money saved can be attributed to your current project or paid directly back to you.
Or, you can donate the money to charity. By using our workplace services, one client was recently able to donate £80,000 to charity from the proceeds of their unwanted furniture.
By giving your unwanted assets a second life, you also divert them from landfill, and offset your carbon footprint - because somebody else doesn’t need to buy new.
Over 18 months across 2020-2021, we extended the life of almost 17,000 products by buying back and reselling unwanted furniture items, saving an estimated 848.90 tons of CO2 emissions.
Evidence of your carbon offset accomplishments
For every project, we provide a full report of your carbon offset accomplishments.
You’ll have evidence of the CO2 emissions you avoided, how many kilos were diverted from landfill, and how much money you saved.
For one recent project, we collected 432 chairs, 245 desks, 462 storage items and 1.4 tonnes of general waste from a 5-floor office building in Croydon.
This resulted in significant savings for the client:
- 31,093kg CO2 emissions avoided
- 20,775kg diverted from landfill
- £9,979.00 cost savings
Our waste policy
We have a waste policy that follows the waste hierarchy in order of application:
Reduce - We will always check to see if assets can be refurbished or reused with a client first. We will undertake a furniture audit to identify these assets.
Reuse - Where possible, items are given a second life either through resale or charity donation.
Recycle - Items that can’t be reused are dismantled, sorted and taken away to recycling centres or reintroduced back into the supply chain (e.g. through remanufacturing).
Recovery - All other waste is compacted and taken away to be reused in waste to energy schemes.
Disposal - Our aim is for zero waste to go to landfill. However, we recognise that this is not always possible depending upon the type and nature of the waste. For example, products with textiles and foams containing persistent organic pollutants (POPs) cannot be recycled and must instead be destroyed.
In addition to your carbon offset accomplishments, you will also receive a full, documented audit trail that details how items have been recycled, recovered, or disposed of.
Start off on the right foot with new furniture assets
Going forward, asset tagging can help you to understand, track and maintain the value of any new furniture assets. You'll be able to make better decisions on future workplace strategies that will save you money and minimise your environmental impact.
Using our unique asset management tool, all your assets are 'tagged' and listed in a database accessed via a secure login. You will have complete visibility of where your assets are located, their depreciation value over time, and their carbon footprint.
Summary
The workplace is a rapidly changing environment; the results of which see over 3 million tonnes of office furniture go to landfill each year.
We can provide the insights to help you plan and execute these changes more effectively, minimising any impacts on the environment and keeping furniture in use for longer.
If you want to discover the hidden value in your furniture assets, get in touch to enquire about a furniture audit. Whatever the size of your clearance, we'll give you clarity on the commercial impacts and peace of mind over the environmental impacts.
