Jun 13 2007
Steelcase, the world’s leading office furniture manufacturer and workspace designer, will unveil pioneering software which will allow public and private sector organisations to assess the environmental impact of their offices.
The ‘Eco-meter’ will be launched at the Procurement Solutions for the Public Sector show in London, by Mark Spragg, Managing Director of Steelcase UK and Professor Niki Bey, collaborating researcher from the Institute of Product Development, part of The Technical University of Denmark.
Mark Spragg said: “The Eco-meter is more than just a tool to calculate carbon emissions. It allows us to examine both economical and environmental outcomes of running an organisation in order to optimise efficiency and productivity while safeguarding the environment.
“More and more clients in the public and private sectors expect us to be able to assess in detail the environmental impact of not just our products, but their whole offices. We intend to use the Eco-meter as part of our workspace consultancy projects.”
The eco-meter, currently being piloted with Nationwide in the UK, enables employers to compare the various implications of a number of different office designs across a number of different criteria, allowing them to tailor their working environment to their needs and those of the employees, without compromising environmental and ethical issues.
Professor Niki Bey, the environmental and sustainability expert behind the development of the Eco-Meter, said: “For the first time, employers have a truly comprehensive tool at their disposal, which offers them a holistic perspective on the impact of the decisions they are making about the way they use their office spaces.”
Steelcase and the Technical University of Denmark have been working together since the early 1990’s, collaborating on a number of eco design issues and developing the life cycle assessment method which has become a central part of Steelcase’s product development process. More recently, the University have worked with Steelcase on the design of the Think chair, and it is their innovative approach to the development, analysis and synthesis of products, from an environmental perspective, which has led to the development of the Eco-Meter.
Mark Spragg added: “Government targets of saving 1 million tonnes of CO2 by 2020 have placed environmentally and ethically sound solutions right at the forefront of current and future business strategies.”