Our Progress

Lean is Green.
What began in 1947 as the relentless pursuit of waste reduction had morphed into a formal environmental management program by the 1980s. In the 1990s we adopted lean manufacturing and settled on a new definition of waste: it’s anything that does not bring value to the customer.

What does bring value? Using only what we need. Conserving limited resources. Maximizing health and safety. These result in better products for our customers, better working conditions for our members and a better world for us all.

Fact - HON manufacturing locations recycle over 300 bales of fabric scrap annually. This fabric scrap is ground into small pieces that are used to produce the liner inside of your car's trunk.

Fact - HON manufacturing locations divert over 2300 tons of sawdust from landfills, and made it available for use as an alternative fuel source.

Fact - HON's compression molding (Comold) process allows nearly 10,000 tons of postconsumer wood waste to be diverted from landfills every year. This, in turn, eliminates the need to consume 5,000 acres of virgin forest each year.

The bottom line: Less waste equals less cost. That makes our lean, green approach a good business decision as well as a smart environmental strategy.

		CALL IT TREECYCLING. Trees contribute more than just beauty to the world — they also reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide, increase available oxygen, filter air pollutants, decrease water pollutants, reduce flooding and more. While trees are renewable resources, they're also relatively slow growing. That's why The HON Company has taken steps to reduce the number of trees that must be cut down to create our products. Rather than newly harvested wood, we use postconsumer wood waste for many seating components. Basically, we're recycling wood that has already been used for other products and is now being discarded after completing its intended use. We use a compression molding process to form this wood waste into usable "boards". This process, called comold, enables us to save roughly 400,000 trees and divert thousands of tons of wood waste from landfills — every single year.
		OLD PAINT MADE NEW AGAIN. The HON Company's waste-reduction efforts extend to the paint we use on our products. Our powdercoat finishes are applied in a special chamber that continuously collects unused paint particles and loops them back into an electrostatic spray gun. HON manufacturing locations recycle over 27,000 gallons of wet paint annually. Approximately 30% of this recycled wet paint was used on site, at HON.
		SHODDY THINKING. The HON Company minimizes fabric waste by using precise, computer-guided cutting machines. Nonetheless, fabric scraps are inevitable. We collect our scrap fabric and turn it over to a company that shreds it for use in "shoddy" — a fibrous material predominately used as a trunk liner in the automotive industry. Annually, we recycle 200-300 bales of fabric scraps — keeping 1,000 lbs. of fabric waste per bale out of landfills.
		BULKING UP. For years, The HON Company has been working to reduce the amount of packing material delivered to customer sites. Our bulk packing option consumes fewer raw materials and decreases the amount of shipping material our customers must recycle or send to landfills. Reducing cartoning also reduces greenhouse gas emissions by decreasing the number of trucks needed to deliver HON product.
		SOY TRUE. The HON Company has introduced soy-based foam to more than half of its total seating line. Soy-based foam is used on many of the most popular chair lines including Pillow-Soft®, Alaris™ and Perpetual®. Up to 15 percent of the total foam used in these chairs is made with soy-based oil. Soy foam manufacturers note that soy foam leaves a smaller environmental footprint than its petroleum-based counterpart because it is made partially from plant-based oils, known as polyol, rather than petroleum chemicals. The use of soy foam leads to reductions in carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions and energy used to produce the material over prior petroleum based foams used in furniture.
		RUNWAY STYLE. Creating an environmentally responsible office doesn't mean sacrificing style and performance for the sake of sustainability. A new 100% recycled yarn, made from post-industrial waste and post-consumer bottles adds a bit of runway style to The HON Company's office seating. HON offers this yarn, Repreve^®, a 100-percent recycled fiber, in seating fabrics including Attire™, Gio™, Charged™ and Quadrille™ and workstation fabrics including Lucy™ and Twilight™. Repreve^® can also be found in many fashion and performance apparel products, including the Synchilla® fleece vest from Patagonia®. Patagonia® and Synchilla®. are registered trademarks of Patagonia, Inc. REPREVE is a registered trademark of Unifi, Inc.
		CLEAN AND GREEN. GreenShield^® is a multi-functional technology providing water repellency and stain resistance in a single finish with greater efficiency than each function delivered separately. GreenShield® is the only finish certified by Scientific Certification Systems (SCS) as a Low Fluorocarbon Treatment product and has achieved SCS Indoor Advantage Gold™ for compliance with specific indoor air quality emission requirements. Benchmarked by MBDC for materials assessment, fabrics finished with GreenShield® can achieve Silver Cradle-to-Cradle^SM certification. GreenShield^® upholstery finish is featured as standard on Panorama™ , Striae™ , and Tile™ textiles from The HON Company. GreenShield^® is a registered trademark of BigSky Technologies LLC.