Herman Miller Compass System - Environmental Product Summary - Manual

Our sustainability goals by the year 2020:
• Zero carbon footprint
• Zero landfill
• Zero hazardous waste generation
• Zero air emissions (VOCs)
• Zero process water use
• 100 percent renewable electrical energy use via renewable
energy credits and a power purchase agreement
• Company buildings constructed to a minimum
LEED Silver certification
• 100 percent of sales from DfE approved products
Environmental Product Summary
Compass ™ System
Design Story: The modular system designed
for change
Gianfranco Zaccai has been thinking about—and
working with—healthcare design for several decades.
He believes that “designers need to strive for a better
kind of better.” Cofounder of design firm Continuum,
a global innovation and design consultancy, Zaccai
brought that forward-looking perspective to bear on
the design of the Compass system, his latest design
for Herman Miller Healthcare. He wasn’t interested in
producing a “better” healthcare product—his goal was
to create a better healthcare experience.
“Space is fundamental to the quality of care, and
space in hospitals is at a premium,” he says. “We
wanted to create the best experience for everyone
concerned, with the smallest footprint.” Flexibility was
critical, of course; nothing stays the same for long in
technology and healthcare these days. But also
important were an improved patient experience and
helping caregivers be more effective.
Zaccai believes that the patient experience and the
caregiver experience go hand in hand. “If the system
makes the caregiver more effective, the patient will do
better. Compass creates an environment that is
credible and familiar. It is an uplifting environment.”
Herman Miller’s Design Protocol
Our commitment to corporate sustainability naturally
includes minimizing the environmental impact of each
of our products. Our Design for Environment team (DfE)
applies environmentally sensitive design standards to
both new and existing Herman Miller products.
The DfE Design Protocol goes beyond regulatory
compliance to thoroughly evaluate new product
designs in four key areas:
• Material Chemistry and Safety of Inputs—
What chemicals are in the materials we specify, and
are they the safest available?
• Disassembly—Can we take products apart at the
end of their useful life, to recycle their materials?
• Recyclability—Do the materials contain recycled
content, and more importantly, can the materials be
recycled at the end of the product’s useful life?
• LCA—Have we optimized the product based on the
entire life cycle?
Material Content
Compass components are constructed from wood,
steel, plastic, and aluminum.
C0mpass is up to 39 percent recyclable at the end
of its useful life.
Compass is comprised of 57-percent recycled materials.
This figure breaks down to 6-percent post-consumer
and 51-percent pre-consumer recycled content.
1
Y
® Y and , Action Office, Co/Struc and Formcoat are among the registered
trademarks of Herman Miller, Inc.
™ Compass is among the trademarks of Herman Miller, Inc.
® GREENGUARD is a registered trademark of the GREENGUARD Environmental Institute.
© 2012 Herman Miller, Inc., Zeeland, Michigan
WOOD 60%
STEEL 21%
PLASTIC 14%
ALUMINUM 5%