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Orangebox, the Welsh office furniture manufacturer who took part in EDC’s Ecodesign Support Package (ESP), has presented their new Cradle to Cradle ‘task’ chair, named Ara to an enthusiastic audience of designers, specifiers, architects and other interested parties at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in London on 26 March 2009.
Following an opening talk by the Managing Director, Mino Vernaschi, the keynote speaker Prof essor Michael Braungart spoke about the Cradle to Cradle concept and its global significance along with complementing the work of Orangebox during the past few years in leading the way globally. This was followed by a question and answer session and an opportunity to try out the new chair.
Orangebox is recognised as one of the UK’s most progressive, innovative and successful office furniture companies. The company began with the introduction of Giroflex into the UK market in 1973. A good environmental design heritage was carried forward from then, leading the company to declare that the environmental agenda is now their business agenda.
The Ara will be on sale from April 2009. Along with being a very ergonomic, stylish and functional chair enhanced environmental features include product light weighting through a mono-material backing unit, improved assembly and disassembly times and improved overall resource efficiency. Notably Orangebox has become the first European Company in their sector to achieve Cradle to Cradle accreditation.
One of the key considerations throughout the Cradle to Cradle process was its sustainability without a functioning infrastructure for the End of Life management of their product range. Working with EDC Orangebox initiated a program of research and capacity building around the potential for an end of life management system to support any Cradle to Cradle activity in the company. The company have set up a recycling centre at their site in Hengoed. The ROI has been significant and they have made a very impressive reduction of materials to landfill. Orangebox will also take back competitors’ products. This proactive approach is relatively unique in the U.K. and Europe.
While this project is the largest investment that Orangebox has done within their product range the design team at Orangebox has been embedding ecodesign actively for a number of years. All the company’s personnel have been involved in various aspects of the project, from shop floor through to senior management. Their approach has been to spread the responsibility across the company and this ‘shared responsibility’ has enabled the project to be successful.
In the last 12 months Orangebox has accelerated the process of changing their business model. These changes have had a positive impact in their supply chain - a total of 60 companies that produce parts for the company have started to make changes within their business in order to keep trading with Orangebox.
In the coming years Orangebox will continue to communicate their leading-edge environmental model to clients and suppliers as well as raising awareness of ecodesign, life cycle thinking and sustainable business practices to the wider stakeholder groups. The company knows this makes clear environmental and business sense.
Click here to view the invite for the event.
Click here to read more information about Orangebox's Ara chair.
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