A Green Heart for Furniture Production
To ensure the best possible and environmentally compatible production of office furniture, Bene has put in place a responsible concept of environmental management for years. Bene’s key quality standards include broad use of natural wood materials, exclusive use of water-soluble paints and a well-thought-out system of package rotation. Bene’s 2005 Environmental Report provides a glimpse of the company’s environmental policy."We are aware of the responsibility a company of our size has towards the environment. Ecological thought and action are an integral part of our philosophy which we apply to all corporate aspects", says Thomas Bene from Bene AG's Board of Directors. "Our Environmental Report documents the Bene Group’s facts and figures relating to the environment. It provides relevant information to our customers and employees on our activities and measures taken in relation to environmental protection".
At Bene, environmental protection indeed looks back on a long-standing tradition: Since it was founded in 1790, the company has relied on broad use of natural wood materials, which today make up 67% of the materials input. Bene uses wood from Central European forests only and so contributes a great deal to protecting tropical forests. Thomas Bene adds that "also, using native wood reduces transport mileages dramatically – a fact that benefits the environment thanks to reduced emission levels".
To minimise formaldehyde exposure, Bene exclusively uses chip board and glues low in formaldehyde of the E1 class.
Statutory levels are a bare minimum
Bene switched to painting and coating based on water-soluble, UV-curing varnishes already back in 1988. Since 1998, Bene has performed these operations with automatic spray guns allowing paint recovery. During the process, any excess paint spraying mist is collected and processed for reuse upon passing a cleaning and filtering station. Even the agents employed for machine cleaning are reprocessed in Bene’s own distillation plant.
"We were able to improve surface finishes significantly so that emission levels of Bene’s furniture surfaces are now far below required standards", says Thomas Bene.
These recommended "TVOC values" of 800 µg should not be exceeded after a period of 28 days. In addition, furniture surfaces must not contain CMR (carcinogenic/ mutagenic/reprotoxic) substances. Samples of varnished Bene products drawn by the Fraunhofer Institute (WKI) of Brunswick, Germany, have shown that the recommended TVOC values are already achieved after 31 hours of coating, i.e. during the ongoing manufacturing process. After 16 days, the maximum permissible value is even improved on by a level of up to 96%. "Therefore Bene’s products have not only proved health-safe but they easily comply with the recommended limit value of 300 µg reflecting the so-called "comfortable" range", Thomas Bene proudly adds.
Package rotation for selective waste avoidance
To avoid waste, Bene introduced a package reuse system as early as 1990, whereby Bene takes back the cardboard and plastic fleece - the package materials delivered together with the shipped products - and returns them to the production chain, depending on the site of delivery. Thus packages are reused three to five times before being recycled under the respective materials category. Any damaged packages are collected separately within their class and passed on to the waste manager for recycling. "This system saves us a great deal of packaging materials per annum", Thomas Bene concludes.
For more detailed information on our environmental measures and activities please see Bene’s Environmental Report 2005.
Hanna Müller
