Crown Workspace awarded four stars at Zero Waste Awards

Ending a successful year of reuse on a high, Crown Workspace was awarded four-stars at the Zero Waste Awards in recognition of our efforts to facilitate a circular economy through furniture and IT reuse and refurbishment services.

Founded in 2010 by letsrecycle.com, the Zero Waste Awards recognise organisations committed to waste reduction, reuse and recycling. This year, 23 companies from various sectors including recycling, retail, hospitality, food and beverage and healthcare were recognised within 10 different categories.

Crown Workspace has been focused on investing in waste prevention and reuse for over 10 years, delivering sustainable workplace change services in-line with the waste hierarchy. These services have enabled our valued clients to maximise the reuse of their assets internally, gain back economic value through resale where viable, donate items to charities and schools to deliver social value, and refurbish items to extend their life when appropriate.

Our Renew Centre facility and donation initiative, the Giving Back Project have continued to grow since they began a decade ago, and in 2017 we launched our Renew IT service to support the refurbishment and reconditioning of IT and AV assets.

In 2021 alone, we facilitated the reuse of over 52,000 items of furniture and IT through refurbishment and donation. This achievement represents a saving of around 2,600 tonnes of CO₂e compared to buying new. For comparison, this would provide around 316 homes with energy for a whole year, or charge up to 320 million smartphones.

An example of a large-scale project maximising reuse is one completed for the leading UK merchant banking group, Close Brothers who were looking to carry out an extensive refurbishment across five floors of their headquarters. Here, we refurbished nearly 1,000 items of existing furniture to suit their design requirements. On top of saving around 64 tonnes of CO₂e in this project, the client also saved approximately £185,000 by choosing not to buy new.

It is a great achievement for Crown Workspace to have been recognised for our contribution to a circular economy, and we will continue to innovate in this area for the highest levels of reuse.