i + D - March/April 2020 - 42

Sustainable Innovators - By Anna Zappia

Reducing Landfill Waste
Greg Benson, CEO and cofounder of Loll Designs, looked for
ways to reduce waste and care for the environment before
all things eco became fashionable. "I started thinking about
sustainability and ecology in high school-I graduated in 1982,"
Benson says. "I had an environmental studies class and the
teacher was an early adopter, and it really affected me."
It's no surprise then that Benson took excess material (a
high-density polyethylene) from the production of skatepark
ramps by his first brand TrueRide and used it to make Loll
Designs' first Adirondack chair. Today, an estimated eight
recycled plastic milk jugs go into each pound of the signature
chair-that equals approximately 400 jugs per chair.
Loll Designs offers a full line of outdoor furniture, from dining
tables and chairs to lounges. The aim is to increase the lifespan
of the pieces by replacing parts as necessary, and consumers
can return their furniture to Loll Designs to be properly recycled.
"Our furniture is recyclable and made of recycled material,
and we've done that since the beginning," Benson notes.
"It's made in the USA, and that has been important to our
customers. People are really looking for a sustainability story."
Last year Loll Designs earned Cradle-to-Cradle certification,
an important milestone for the company that's also helping to
boost its bottom line. "It's an acknowledgement, a stamp of
approval for what we are doing. Half of our sales come from
architects and designers. On the contract side now, they really
require a higher level of sustainability, so they are looking for
these third-party certifications," Benson adds.

Outdoor furniture
from Loll Designs
is both recyclable
and made of
recycled material.
(Image: Brian King)

The Oceans & the Office
Humanscale, a manufacturer of ergonomic office furniture and tools,
has had the health of office workers and the planet in mind since it was
founded more than three decades ago. As its chief sustainability officer,
Jane Abernethy has kept the company's vision on track even as corporate
goals change and environmental priorities at large continue to shift.
With a steady stream of accolades, awards, and citations for environmental
leadership, Humanscale hasn't become complacent. The team wants to
move beyond platitudes and buzzwords and provide tangible results. "From
the top level down, we're striving to leave the world better off than it was
before. And actually, calculating the positive impact that we've made has
been kind of challenging," Abernethy says.
As people acquire more knowledge about how products are made and
the benefits of sustainable practices, the days of simply impressing them
by making claims about "being green" have passed. "I think people are
starting to become more critical, and somebody putting out a sustainability
goal is not necessarily good enough anymore," she says. "Making your
own statement is not as strong as having someone else validate the
statements that you're making. The Living Product Challenge ['a framework
for manufacturers to create products that are healthy, inspirational, and
give back to the environment'] and other performance-based standards are
important because you have to show that you did achieve a goal, not just
that you planned on achieving it."
In 2016, Humanscale was the first to achieve full Living Product Challenge
Certification, which calls on manufacturers and suppliers to create products
using processes solely powered by renewable energy and within the water
balance of the places where they are made. It was when Humanscale
was pursuing the certification that Abernethy met the founders of Bureo,
a manufacturer that develops products from recycled fishing nets. The
inspired collaboration between the two innovators resulted in Humanscale's
Smart Ocean chair, which incorporates almost 2 pounds of recycled fishing
net material sourced from Bureo.

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i+D - March/April 2020
i + D - March/April 2020

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