Active Workplace Group has always championed sustainable decisions when it comes to office furniture and increasingly our clients are choosing to not need buy everything new. In our experience, with clever craftsmanship, much of the furniture already in a workplace can be reused, repaired, refurbished or given a new purpose—extending its useful life, reducing waste and embodied carbon, and cutting capital costs. We know that the most sustainable and economical choice is usually the one that keeps a good-quality asset in use for longer.
We start with an asset audit
Before ordering replacements for a move, refurbishment or reorganisation, we recommend that our clients should carry out a furniture audit – something we are happy to handle. This audit record what exists, its condition, quantity, age, warranty status and suitability for the proposed layout. Our audits often reveal that a proportion of desks, chairs, storage and meeting furniture can remain in place or be relocated. It also identifies items that need minor repair—such as new castors, gas struts, upholstery, desktops or locking mechanisms—rather than wholesale replacement. We also have highly skilled French polishing expertise that can breathe new life into tired, high-ticket items. A choice that Telemos Capital chose with their reused boardroom table.
A simple hierarchy helps your business make consistent decisions:
- Reuse internally – move furniture to another floor, office or home-working setting.
- Repair – fix faults and replace worn components.
- Refurbish – clean, repaint, reupholster or replace selected parts.
- Remanufacture – restore furniture to an as-new standard through a controlled engineering process.
- Buy used – source quality second-hand or remanufactured items where additional furniture is needed.
- Repurpose – adapt items for another function, such as turning surplus desks into collaborative tables.
- Sell, donate or recycle – only when the item cannot reasonably be retained in use.
Active will always advise that reuse, and repair should come before recycling or disposal to adhere to our sustainable waste hierarchy.
Sourcing quality used furniture
Used does not have to mean second-best. High-quality commercial furniture is often designed for intensive use and can have many years of service left. Buying used or remanufactured furniture can deliver substantial savings: one UK case study estimated an average saving of around 70% against the original purchase price for quality used office furniture. We have an extensive network of used office furniture suppliers including big names such as Senator.
When sourcing second-hand we always ensure that we have:
- A condition report and photographs before purchase
- Details of cleaning, repair or refurbishment carried out
- Manufacturer, model and warranty information where available
- Fire-safety and regulatory compliance information, especially for upholstered items
- Delivery, installation and take-back options
- A clear returns or replacement policy
Refurbish rather than replace
Refurbishment is often the most practical route for furniture that is structurally sound but tired. Desks can be resurfaced or fitted with new tops; chairs can receive new upholstery, arms, castors and mechanisms; storage can be repainted and reconfigured; and meeting tables can be repaired and refinished. Active’s skilled joinery team can work miracles, and the savings can be significant. In our experience, remodelling an office desk can cost around 70% less than buying an equivalent new desk, while repairing or refurbishing a chair can reduce its carbon footprint by 45%.
Refurbishment works best when it is planned early. Facilities, procurement, design and sustainability teams should agree which existing assets will be retained, what standard they need to meet, and how any repairs will be specified. This prevents usable furniture from being cleared out simply because it does not match a new colour scheme.
Repurpose what already exists
Not every item needs to return to its original role. A surplus desk can become a shared project table; storage units can support breakout areas; meeting chairs can be relocated to informal collaboration spaces; and larger desks can be adapted for home or hybrid working. Our furniture team are brilliant at being creative with existing assets. Repurposing is especially valuable during office moves and consolidations, when furniture volumes often exceed the requirements of the new layout. Direct internal reuse is typically the simplest and lowest-impact option, whether by moving items to another office or offering suitable ergonomic furniture to employees.
Where furniture cannot be used internally, it should be offered for resale, donation or reuse by another organisation before recycling. This keeps materials at their highest value for longer and can support community organisations, charities or smaller businesses. Active’s charity network are always delighted to be part of the circular economy and we donate significant volumes of unwanted items to deserving causes every year,
Make it part of procurement
In our years of experience, we recommend that circular furniture decisions are built into procurement, not left to the end of a project. Active is always happy to:
- Provide reuse, repair and take-back options
- Offer spare parts and repair services
- Specify modular, durable and replaceable components
- Report the proportion of reused, refurbished or remanufactured furniture
- Include embodied carbon and end-of-life routes in tender submissions
- Avoid bespoke products that cannot be repaired, adapted or resold
A better lifetime, not just a lower price
Buying used, refurbishing and repurposing furniture is not simply about avoiding disposal. It is a practical way to get better lifetime value from workplace assets. It reduces demand for new materials, diverts furniture from waste streams and lowers the carbon associated with furnishing an office. This is important to nearly every client we work with – take our recent client, Signify, who were wanting a higher spec space but not at the expense of sustainability. From the project’s inception to close, the mantra was Reuse/Repurpose or Recycle for every possible resource.
For offices, our message is straightforward: before buying new, ask us whether existing furniture can be kept, improved or given another life. Often, the most sustainable and cost-effective workplace is already partly furnished.
If you are interested in how Active Workplace Group can help you with your sustainability goals then please get in touch.
Read our latest Carbon & Sustainability Reports here!
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