The First Facility Management Blog

Kimball Office has earned level™ certification for nearly all of its products. A LEED-like program for the contract furniture market, level verifies conformance to BIFMA’s e3 sustainability standard through a recognized third-party certifier (For Kimball Office, it is Scientific Certification Systems). With the exception of Bingo seating and Aspire tables, all of Kimball Office’s current products are certified to level 1.

Products can be awarded a level 1, level 2, or level 3 compliance mark based on their contribution and points achieved. level 3 is the highest award a product can achieve and is similar to a platinum ranking in  the LEED rating system.

Fluent™ from Kimball Office uses an adaptive platform of worksurfaces, tables, storage options, and privacy screens. Fluent can be configured and reconfigured for various applications, including accounting, sales, customer service, marketing, and executive suites, as well as breakout sessions and the like.

In addition to achieving certification, Kimball Office played a leading role within the diverse group involved in developing e3 with BIFMA. The e3 standard ensures a comprehensive and impartial assessment of a product’s environmental and social impact. It also serves as a tool for end users to understand how products contribute to their organization’s sustainability goals.

The new standard applies to all business and institutional furniture, including movable walls, systems furniture, desking systems, casegoods, tables, seating and accessories, and materials and components manufactured by suppliers to furniture manufacturers.

“No other sustainability standard is as all encompassing for office furniture as e3 is,” said Jeff Fenwick, vice president/general manager, Kimball Office. “Unlike many standards, e3 assesses the entire manufacturing process from beginning to end and across a broad spectrum of attributes, both internally and with our suppliers. That’s a real breakthrough for our customers, their workplace environments and the natural environment.”

As part of its organization-wide sustainability commitment, Kimball Office is dedicated to eliminating pollution generated at the source, use of renewable materials, and reclamation and recycling of materials to minimize adverse impact on the environment. The company’s environmental accomplishments include developing PURA™, a proprietary UV wood finishing process; registering its manufacturing facilities to ISO 14001:2004 standards achieving SmartWay certification for its transport/shipping fleet; and certifying its showrooms and corporate offices to LEED-CI standards.

The furniture company recently completed its 41,160 square foot corporate headquarters in Jasper, IN. The space, designed by Gensler, brings the Kimball Office team together in one central location within Kimball International’s main site in Jasper. (Kimball Office is a business unit of Kimball International.)

“Creating sustainable facilities anchors our design criteria, as it does for many of our clients,” said Mona Hoffman, vice president of marketing at Kimball Office. “Using the LEED-CI guidelines helped us improve the environmental performance of our corporate offices and gave us an effective model for demonstrating green strategies and solutions to commonly experienced renovation problems.”

Several notable details qualified the space for LEED-CI Silver from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). These included:

• Diverting more than 80% of on-site construction waste from landfills
• Specifying locally manufactured, recycled, and rapidly renewable materials
• Using green housekeeping products
• Sharing the project as part of an educational program to give clients insight to sustainable building design and environmentally friendly products

Other sustainable strategies involved:

• Making daylight and window views available to more than 90% of occupants
• Providing centrally located recycling collection areas
• Minimizing or eliminating volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in materials specified for paints, adhesives, carpets, and composite wood materials
• Retrofitting plumbing fixtures to increase water efficiency
• Employing multiple measures to improve energy efficiency and indoor air quality

Kimball Office is a member of the USGBC and operates several LEED-certified facilities, including its New York, Chicago, and Jasper showrooms. The company’s San Francisco and Atlanta showrooms are applicants for LEED certification.