SUSTAINABILITY & ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
A beekeeper tends the hives on the grounds of Herman Miller's GreenHouse building. Its wildflowers, thanks to the bees, are thriving.
So is environmental advocacy at Herman Miller.
Our (not so) easy 10-step formula.
Start with a corporate culture that believes in stewardship.
Get yourself a CEO who on top of that thinks that environmentally friendly business practices are the right thing to do.
Educate your employees in the benefits of corporate participation and doing things on their own.
Cultivate a group of those employees who see the environment as part of their job.
Have your CEO give them the freedom to do whatever they think is best. Do this for 15 years.
Generate some of your company’s power. Continue for 20 years.
Encourage your core group of corporate environmentalists to spread the word and practices throughout your company and community.
Help found the Tropical Forest Foundation. Change the veneer used on your most famous product to align with your environmental efforts.
Help found the U.S. Green Building Council.
Hire an unknown but promising architect who’s passionate about environmentalism to design a building for you and wait for him to become famous. Continue to listen to Bill McDonough’s advice.
Complete 2 of the first 11 Gold LEED-certified projects in the country. Host biannual conferences on the environment and invite your competition.
Repeat these steps as necessary.
We are making a difference. You can, too.
CRADLE TO CRADLE
The importance of Cradle to Cradle (C2C) product certification is progressively growing throughout the world. In France especially, the visibility has been raised through Integral Vision, partner of EPEA, Michael Braungart's C2C certifying agency in Hamburg. A recent French TV report during an evening news broadcast, dedicated to companies who apply C2C, reported on the remarkable Herman Miller Mirra chair and its pioneering C2C environmental certification. The report was watched by 6 million viewers.
Note:
Mirra was designed from beginning to end to meet the strict requirements of Herman Miller's Design for Environment cradle-to-cradle protocol for safe material chemistry, disassembly, and recyclability. The chair is durable, made of a minimal number of parts, and is easy to disassemble for local recycling. Recycled content is 42 percent, and the chair is 96 percent recyclable. Latitude fabric is 100 percent recyclable. Mirra contains no PVC