Squeaky chairs and why law firms may be overlooking sustainability secrets and 50% savings

Rachel Houghton of Business Moves Group explores the carbon footprint of office furniture, and discusses how firms can engage with the circular economy to become more sustainable.

A report from Savills found that 40% of law firms in Europe, the Middle East and Africa expanded office space in the first half of 2024, with London one of the expansion hotspots.

It’s recommended that offices should have 122-225 sq ft per person, though this varies by sector and working style. Legal firms are often at the higher end of this scale due to the need for private offices, larger meeting rooms and extensive document storage areas.

More space means more furniture, yet furniture management is an often-overlooked aspect of sustainability. This is relevant to every law firm, regardless of size, and is also a great way to reduce costs and deliver more social value.

What is the carbon footprint of office furniture?

The estimated average carbon footprint for common office furniture includes:

• office chair: 72kgCO2e
• wooden filing cabinet: 48kgCO2e
• rectangular office desk: 35kgCO2e
• six-person bench desk: 228kgCO2e

The carbon dioxide emissions of office furniture are all in the form of embodied carbon – the fossil fuels emissions created in the sourcing of materials, production of items and transport. The more we can reuse furniture, the better.

Discarded furniture

The most comprehensive study into office furniture in recent times was a 2011 report from the Waste & Resources Action Programme. It found that go to UK landfill every year.

These numbers will likely have changed as more businesses have become conscious of sustainability, but furniture is still an afterthought when compared to energy use or emissions.

There are a few reasons why furniture may be discarded. ‘Fast furniture’ is cheap furniture made with multiple parts, often shipped from distant countries. A lot of parts do not have replaceable components, and they have a shorter lifespan than high-quality products.

Another reason is that businesses do not know of other options. There are numerous solutions for unwanted furniture, and landfill should not even be an option. Recycling is the last resort, and only when an item has truly reached the end of its lifecycle.

Finally, some businesses simply use landfill as the easy option. Not only is this bad for the environment, but throwing items in landfill is essentially throwing money down the drain – almost any item can be reused or repurposed in one way or another.

Sustainable furniture management

The best way to be more sustainable is to engage in the circular economy. That means avoiding sending items to landfill and making more informed purchasing decisions.

With the amount of office furniture in circulation, it’s rare that items need to be bought new. There are plenty of great second-hand options available, while existing items can be refurbished to look as good as new. For smaller firms this is a cheaper alternative to buying new.

We work with many larger law firms and often find they don’t have an oversight of their physical assets. This can lead to one office buying new chairs, for example, when another site has a surplus. In firms with multiple sites, a digital asset list is essential to a sustainable furniture programme.

Surplus furniture

There are a handful of options before you need to send anything to be recycled.

Storage is worthwhile as a short-term solution. This can be useful if you are in the middle of a workplace change project or just need a bit of time while assessing your assets.

Selling unwanted furniture is an excellent way to recoup costs from a change management project – we’ve helped clients reduce the costs of a project by up to 50% by selling unwanted furniture. This also ensures that you and the buyer are contributing to the circular economy.

Finally, donating equipment is a great option from a corporate social responsibility perspective. Many of our clients have local charities they donate furniture to, and we also have links with many groups who are always on the lookout for unwanted office equipment.

Demonstrate your impact

Impact reports are becoming increasingly common, and with good reason. Regulatory and stakeholder pressure, business resilience and employee attraction and retention are all necessitating businesses to not only become more sustainable but also to track their progress.

A more sustainable approach to furniture management will support this process, as well as helping to reduce costs.

Written by Rachel Houghton, managing director at Business Moves Group