Category Archive For "Sustainability"
Agile working and the transformation of office design
The workplace has gone soft and I mean that in a good way. Over the past twenty or more years we have experienced the very welcome development of a much softer aesthetic generally when it comes to the design of offices. This process has accelerated dramatically in recent years as more and more firms have …
in News, Sustainability, WELLBEING
Wellbeing is now one of the most important drivers of sustainability in offices
As organisations depend more and more on the skills and knowledge of people for their competitive advantage and growth, so too are they increasingly concerned about the wellbeing of individuals. They may not have a magic wand to deal with the issue completely, but they do have more awareness and a growing number of tools …
in News, Sustainability
To truly make a difference, firms should code ethics in their DNA
There is a theory that when companies talk about issues such as corporate social responsibility they are doing so because it helps them to achieve their business goals. This is the rational commercial thing to do according to people like the famous economist and proponent of the free market Milton Friedman who argued that companies …
How the Dutch pioneered agile working, wellbeing and the world’s smartest buildings
Many of the challenges we face in selecting the right office design models first became apparent during the 1960s as the world adjusted to the first signs of the technological revolution. At the same time, people across Europe were pressing for changes in the way organisations and the economy worked. The advent of formal workers’ …
Attention to corporate social responsibility higher in family owned firms
Companies owned by families pay more attention to issues of corporate social responsibility (CSR), such as sustainability and environmental issues, according to research from Vlerick Business School in Belgium. Dr. Kerstin Fehre, Professor of Strategy at Vlerick Business School, alongside Dr. Florian Weber from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, studied family firms and …
Lease furniture. It’s on trend and environmentally friendly!
Cars, garden tools or motorhomes – the rental of commodities has long been established. People appreciate an inexpensive and space-saving alternative to buying as well as the possibility to own an item for a limited time. Does this also apply to chairs, tables and cupboards? The question is, would you lease your furniture? Borrowing is …
Shining daylight on wellbeing and productivity
Some of the most important elements of a workplace design come free. That is just one of the essential lessons from former Sky Workplace Director Neil Usher’s influential book The Elemental Workplace, which sets out the twelve most important characteristics of a productive and healthy working environment.
Taking an enlightened view of the environmental performance of office furniture
The term ‘greenwash’ has been around for quite a while now. The first recorded use of the term dates back to 1992 at the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit and first entered the Oxford Dictionary in 1999, where it is now enshrined as ‘disinformation disseminated by an organisation so as to present an environmentally responsible …
Why activity based working is an increasingly popular workplace solution
The language we use to describe work and workplaces evolves almost as quickly as the workplace itself. And if there is one term that encapsulates cutting edge workplace design thinking in this part of the 21st Century it is Activity Based Working (ABW). As with most of these ideas there is nothing magical, or even new …
Sustainable depends on attention to detail: Sedus exemplifies the quality of Made in Germany
Sedus factory Dogern One of the most important characteristics of Sedus Stoll AG is the firm’s high level of vertical integration. On average, this accounts for half of the value added in the company’s operations. That is why all essential processes related to environmental performance take place in house and are monitored constantly. Manufacturing at …
