Thinking Ergonomix Environmental Sustainability Report

MESSAGE FROM THE MANAGING DIRECTOR

“It’s not about keeping up with environmental and social trends. It’s about doing the right thing, making sure you have fun doing what you do, knowing you’ve been fair to your neighbours and trying to ensure everyone else in our global community has the same opportunities we have, both now and in the future”.

“This is not only the way I feel about my responsibility as the Managing Director of Thinking Ergonomix, it’s the way most staff at Thinking Ergonomix feel about their responsibility as members of the community. It gives you a great feeling to see colleagues embrace something that’s important to you such as the environment, but it gives you an even better feeling when your colleagues go one step further and champion the cause. All of a sudden the contribution one person makes is overtaken by a passion you could never have developed on your own. Suggestions for making our environment and community a better place flow in from all quarters every week of the year. The suggestions from the staff of Thinking Ergonomix are the core of this Sustainability Report”.

Dean Kuch
Managing Director

 
INTRODUCTION
This report serves to document the efforts that Thinking Ergonomix makes towards improving our environment and community.

As a small organisation we do not have the infrastructure and financial capacity of some of our larger competitors, however we believe “pound for pound” our contribution to improving our world far outweighs that of most large organisations.

COMPANY OVERVIEW
Thinking Ergonomix Pty Ltd manufactures and supplies specialised furniture components to the commercial furniture market. Products include height adjustable desk mechanisms, table base systems, folding table bases, GPO and data management boxes, storage and seating products and computer monitor arms. These products are sold to office furniture/workstation suppliers, and marketed to the architectural and design industry.

Thinking Ergonomix is dedicated to the principle of sustainable design and development. We believe in minimising the environmental impact of our products throughout their lifecycle and within the manufacture and use of our products. We believe this is our responsibility towards future generations.

THINKING ERGONOMIX’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ENVIRONMENT
In 2005 Thinking Ergonomix formalised the environmental initiatives already developed within the business. This decision led to a whole host of new ideas that were put into action within our workplace to further improve our environmental efforts.

One of the initiatives that we had a lot of fun with was during our participation in a key industry event - Saturday In Design.  We decided to make our event “carbon neutral” by purchasing carbon credits to offset the emissions resulting from our involvement in the exhibition. We estimated the amount of carbon dioxide that would be emitted into the atmosphere, resulting from air travel, transportation of product, energy used to manufacture product, electricity consumed for lighting, printing of promotional material etc. We also purchased enough credits to offset the emissions created by the official event buses. The credits were purchased through brokers Carbon Planet (www.carbonplanet.com) from the NSW Greenhouse Gas Registry. The credits were created from tree planting (also known as forest sequestration).

The following year our small ripple had created a wave and many other companies including the event organizers had followed the trend set by Thinking Ergonomix in offsetting their emissions through the purchase of carbon credits.

THINKING ERGONOMIX’S ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY STATEMENT
Thinking Ergonomix is dedicated to the principle of sustainable design and development. We believe in minimising the environmental impact of our products throughout their life cycle and within the manufacture and use of our products. We believe this is our responsibility towards future generations.
We do this by:

• implementing an environmental management system in accordance with ISO14001 to monitor our environmental performance and to set environmental objectives and targets that are under constant review
• complying with relevant legislation and regulations and having due regard to changing community standards
• meeting industry best practice
• continuing an improvement in:

• the reduction in the consumption of resources
• the reduction of waste produced
• the prevention of pollution to the environment
• design for the environment

Thinking Ergonomix makes a commitment to this environmental policy and will continue to develop areas of improvement.

THE GREEN TEAM
Thinking Ergonomix has created a team of staff who are dedicated to supporting and developing the environmental efforts of the business. We call this group “The Green Team”. The Green Team has implemented policies including:

• Convert all power usage within the manufacturing plant and offices to Greenpower electricity, generated from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar
• Supplier selection – ensuring our suppliers are appropriately accredited with local council and/or government authorities as having certified waste water management systems
• Selecting material for product design that is environmentally sound
• Ensuring packaging is manufactured from recycled material where possible, and is recyclable
• All literature - whether for promotional or technical requirements - general office printing and printing on packaging uses non toxic dyes
• All staff are encouraged to think of and implement procedures and solutions to reduce environmental impact within the company and at their place of residence.  Examples include the use of grey water for watering gardens, recycling of printer cartridges, ensuring the office air conditioning system is regularly maintained to maximize its efficiently, minimizing printing within the office and printing paper back to back
• We implement a Box Buy Back scheme whereby packaging is purchased back from our customers and re-used for new orders
• Packaging has been redesigned to improve compactness and reduce wasted space in transport

SETTING ENVIRONMENTAL GOALS
The Green Team has established the following goals which Thinking Ergonomix aims to meet by 2015:

• To have 100% of our product range produced from 100% recyclable materials
• All products to have a high content of recycled material without compromising the integrity of the product
• Our products will be designed and manufactured for longevity, extending their useful life and reducing the need for replacement
• Our products will be designed for 100% disassembly for recycling at the end of their useful life 
• Our products will produce negligible if any VOC emissions into the atmosphere
• Our manufacturing plant and office will not produce any hazardous waste
• We will power our manufacturing and office facility from renewable energy
• Thinking Ergonomix will subscribe to Green Fleet for each company and privately owned staff vehicle to offset carbon emissions through the planting of trees (www.greenfleet.com.au)

VOC EMMISSIONS
Our products are designed to produce low or zero Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC’s). Very small amounts of adhesives are used in the manufacture of less than 2% of our product range.  Products are either finished by polishing, sand blasting or powder coating (which is solvent free).
 
WASTE
We recycle all paper, cardboard, metal and plastic waste within our manufacturing plant and office.  Recycle bins are strategically placed at all assembly points within the manufacturing plant.
We request our suppliers provide components in as little packaging as possible, with maximum recyclability.
In the hierarchy of waste management, “re-use” ranks higher than “recycle”.  Thinking Ergonomix encourages the re-use of our own packaging through our “Box Buy Back” program.  Here, we offer our customers credit for any packaging returned in good condition which is then re-used in new orders.

WATER CONSUMPTION
Water is not used in our factory except in the staff bathrooms and kitchen.  We have dual flush toilets and a low flow shower head in the staff gymnasium shower.

POWER CONSUMPTION
Thinking Ergonomix purchases electricity generated from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar to provide all power to our manufacturing plant and offices.
Regular maintenance of equipment in our factory and the HVAC system supplying our offices ensures the most efficient use of electricity.  Signs remind staff to turn off lights when rooms are not in use.  Computers are turned off overnight.  Thinking Ergonomix are regular participants in Earth Hour where all non-essential electrical equipment is switched off for one hour in March.
Staff are encouraged to convert their residential power use to “green power”.

PRODUCT STEWARDSHIP
Product stewardship is concerned with minimizing the impact of our product throughout its life cycle. Thinking Ergonomix’s Product Stewardship includes:

• Thinking Ergonomix gives preference to suppliers with good environmental performance
• Thinking Ergonomix has an end of life policy and will accept our products back for re-use or recycling
• Thinking Ergonomix will accept the return of all packaging for recycling
• Thinking Ergonomix has a “box buy-back” programme for packaging returned in good re-usable condition. 

For more information on our Environmental Policies, please contact our Sales Office.

TRANSPORTATION
We design all of our products to be delivered flat packed.  This greatly increases the number of products that can be shipped, therefore conserving energy.  We encourage staff to car pool.  We subscribe all company and employee vehicles to Greenfleet (www.greenfleet.com.au) whereby trees are planted for every vehicle to offset their carbon emissions.  All company vehicles have 4 cylinder engines and are economical to run and are more energy efficient than standard family vehicles.

FINAL WORDS
Thinking Ergonomix are committed to the environment not just because of industry forces, rather because of a true passion for caring for our friends, caring for our fellow members of the community whether it be the current year or the year 2020.  Although we are a small company we have a lot of clever minds constantly improving the way we do business in our environment.  We may not have the financial capacity of some companies within our industry, but we have a sincere desire to make sure we leave our neighborhood a better place than when we first arrived.