Building Green
Setting the table for sustainability.
As a family-owned business, Grand Rapids Chair Company has always focused on long-term interests over short-term rewards. Our fundamental purpose is not to maximize quarterly earnings, it’s to create something of lasting value – for our customers and employees, our children and grandchildren, our community and our planet.
Download our environmental brochure (2 MB, PDF) for more details, facts and figures.
Not only do our sustainability efforts help protect the environment, they can help our customers earn credits toward LEED-CI certification.
That’s why environmental sustainability is just as important to us as building high-quality products. We are constantly seeking new and more effective ways to conserve natural resources, reduce waste, minimize pollution and preserve the earth for generations to come. We source wood from certified renewable forests, recycle all our internally generated scrap, use a water-based wood finishing system, and much more.
Meet the family: Tommy and Charlie, sons of sales/marketing vice president Tom Southwell.
Building Green
As a family-owned business, Grand Rapids Chair Company has always focused on long-term interests over short-term rewards. Our fundamental purpose is not to maximize quarterly earnings, it’s to create something of lasting value – for our customers and employees, our children and grandchildren, our community and our planet.
Not only do our sustainability efforts help protect the environment, they can help our customers earn credits toward LEED-CI certification. Sustainability is a journey, not a destination. So we're looking for new ways to get greener every day.
That’s why environmental sustainability is just as important to us as building high-quality products. We are constantly seeking new and more effective ways to conserve natural resources, reduce waste, minimize pollution and preserve the earth for generations to come.
Our steps toward a more sustainable future include:
- Establishing an in-house “GMA Green Team” that analyzes the environmental impact of our processes and procedures, investigates more earth-friendly methods, and raises the “green awareness” of our employees, suppliers and customers.
- Manufacturing steel products with a minimum of 25% recycled content and when available purchasing steel with 100% recycled content from mills like Steel Dynamics and Nucor (www.nucor.com).
- Recycling 100% of our internally generated steel and aluminum scrap.
- Painting our steel and aluminum products with a baked-on powder-coat process that eliminates VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds).
- Sourcing wood from certified renewable forests only.
- Implementing a water-based wood-finishing system that has reduced VOC emissions by 95% over previous systems.
- Producing upholstered seat boards and table tops with low-formaldehyde products.
- Recycling all shipping skids, cardboard and paper.
- Recycling all foam, vinyl and textile scraps from our upholstery operations.
- Adding high-yield, renewable bamboo as a tabletop edge option.
- Offering a full range of 100% recycled fabrics from Momentum Textiles, CF Stinson and Coral of Chicago.
