There is really no excuse to throw away old desks, furniture and IT equipment in the race to modernise businesses that are refurbishing or moving offices. Office desks and chairs, for instance, have been a big burden on the environment for many years; often ending up in landfill.<\/p>\n
Businesses choose to replace their furniture and IT equipment with bigger, smaller or higher-spec models, even when they are perfectly usable. Now, however, there is another option as new office refit companies begin to offer more sustainable alternatives which fit into a circular economy model.<\/p>\n
This\u00a0phrase describes an alternative model to a linear business world in which goods are made, used and then disposed of.<\/p>\n
In a circular economy, the focus is on a more resource-efficient way of doing things, one in which waste is eliminated and resources are used, recovered and then regenerated.<\/p>\n
Phil Oram, Regional Director at Crown Workspace, which refurbishes and repurposes office furniture for clients at its innovative Renew Centre<\/a> in London, believes it\u2019s time to change.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cWe can\u2019t continue to throw everything away. We were brought up uneducated about sustainability and it\u2019s our children and social media that are starting to educate us that we must change.<\/p>\n \u201cRemanufacturing office furniture just makes sense, not just ethically but financially, too. There is a 70 per cent cost saving against new. So, it\u2019s not always the expensive option to do the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Approximately 1.2 million of\ufb01ce desks and 1.8 million of\ufb01ce chairs end up in UK land\ufb01ll each year according to the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) whose last figures were produced in 2011.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) estimates 2 million tonnes of Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), including IT and telecommunications equipment, are thrown out in the UK annually.<\/p>\n