Recycled Materials

Every product manufactured by Boss Design contains some recycled material content and is supplied with a product data sheet that shows the breakdown of materials used in its manufacture. Every year we are increasing the amount of recycled material used in our products and will continue to push the mechanical and commercial framework in which our industry operates.

We hold full ISO 14001 accreditation and take a proactive approach, continually striving to enhance ours and our customers sustainable procurement processes and policies. Our commitment was recognised with the Queens Award for Enterprise for Sustainable Development.

Our approach to environmental management, is best illustrated via practical case study. We formed a product team to consider, evaluate and refine the environmental impact of our product development process. The approach taken for our ‘Cega’ product as an example, evaluates methods of manufacture, and compares the environmental impacts of alternative methods of manufacture. Our approach culminated in an award for the ‘Furniture Manufacturers Association

Increasing the use of recycled material in our products is a balancing act between pushing the continual percentage improvements we seek and the potential risks associated with changing suppliers, mechanical performance and surface finish criteria. It’s a complicated subject that we are picking our way through to ensure that the need to increase our recycled content does not lead to quality issues, longer lead times or inconsistency from batch-to-batch.

At the same time we are mindful of the fact that we need to reduce our carbon footprint. Therefore, it’s important that the introduction of any new recycled material does not jeopardise this.

Every project is different and every customer’s aims and expectations appear to be different – therefore the most important aspect to this complicated subject is open and honest dialogue between ourselves, our customers and our suppliers. For example, currently there is still a shortage of high quality recycled plastic granules available in some materials, which can mean buying from further away, on longer lead times, or at a higher price. For some of our customers these are factors they can work with, but for other it isn’t.