Herman Miller Business Case
Herman Miller Business Case
1. Executive summary
Herman Miller, an environmental leader in the office furniture industry that offers a wide variety of products including seating, systems furniture, filing storage, desks, tables and health care. In 1989, the company decided to adopt a triple-bottom-line philosophy, so it established and changed company's environmental direction by adopting "Perfect Vision" initiative that targeted zero landfill, zero hazardous, waste generation, zero air and water emissions.
In 1997, the company decided to implement a cradle-to-cradle (C2C) protocol based on eco-effectiveness vs. eco-efficiency and Waste equals food; which consisted of four key elements: biological and technical nutrients; green-yellow-orange list disassembly, recyclability and recycled content. The C2C approach focused on minimizing toxic pollution and reducing natural resources waste.
After years of extensive work, in 2001, the company decided that it was time to implement a C2C design protocol on a product that would contain recyclable materials from beginning to end; Mirra chair project was launched. Herman Miller worked toward the design process, manufacturing, engineers, supply chain managers, manufacturing associates, design consultants, trained over 300 employees, worked with suppliers to find substitutes eco-friendly materials, performed raw material assessment, met with people from sales and marketing and discussed several options for closing the loop by recycling the material from Mirra chair.
The major issue the company faced was determining the material that was going to be used for the arm-pad skin: polyvinyl chloride (PVC) versus thermoplastic urethane (TPU). PVC was known to be inexpensive and provided to be durable, scratch resistant and soft; but violated the standards of the C2C protocol. PVC had bad press due to its toxicity during manufacturing process and when it was burned or incinerated. In contrary, TPU showed that had
1. Executive summary
Herman Miller, an environmental leader in the office furniture industry that offers a wide variety of products including seating, systems furniture, filing storage, desks, tables and health care. In 1989, the company decided to adopt a triple-bottom-line philosophy, so it established and changed company's environmental direction by adopting "Perfect Vision" initiative that targeted zero landfill, zero hazardous, waste generation, zero air and water emissions.
In 1997, the company decided to implement a cradle-to-cradle (C2C) protocol based on eco-effectiveness vs. eco-efficiency and Waste equals food; which consisted of four key elements: biological and technical nutrients; green-yellow-orange list disassembly, recyclability and recycled content. The C2C approach focused on minimizing toxic pollution and reducing natural resources waste.
After years of extensive work, in 2001, the company decided that it was time to implement a C2C design protocol on a product that would contain recyclable materials from beginning to end; Mirra chair project was launched. Herman Miller worked toward the design process, manufacturing, engineers, supply chain managers, manufacturing associates, design consultants, trained over 300 employees, worked with suppliers to find substitutes eco-friendly materials, performed raw material assessment, met with people from sales and marketing and discussed several options for closing the loop by recycling the material from Mirra chair.
The major issue the company faced was determining the material that was going to be used for the arm-pad skin: polyvinyl chloride (PVC) versus thermoplastic urethane (TPU). PVC was known to be inexpensive and provided to be durable, scratch resistant and soft; but violated the standards of the C2C protocol. PVC had bad press due to its toxicity during manufacturing process and when it was burned or incinerated. In contrary, TPU showed that had