The New Business Environment … Easy to become Green by Design

The green movement, which may possibly seem new to some, itʼs theories and practices actually go back for ages. Anyone who has parents or relatives who lived through the great depression and any world war times did many practices of re-use, re-cycle, re-everything for survival and for the war effort. My grandparents did and kept on doing those low tech, natural practices all throughout their lives. Then during my own youth, came the 60ʼs and 70ʼs of loving everybody and everything, living and thinking naturally, which lead to the creation of the first Earth Day.

My first Earth Day was memorable because of its quiet manner of execution. My mom drove my brother and I in our indestructible Jeep Willys to a dirt road near us that didnʼt have many people living on it. We started to pick up trash along that road. Soon, local kids saw us. They tooled on out on their banana seat bikes and without invite, without cajoling, simply chimed in. By the time we reached the mid point of the road, we had a local farmer off his tractor and some neighbors that happen to be driving that road …. all stopped to help.

No invitation necessary. No party planned afterwards, no nothing, no marketing and no sales pitches. It was simply just done.

The office space or business space, whatever it may be, supports the companyʼs people and their functions, period. Within that realm of the “space” also lives the peopleʼs support of the philosophies, the corporate mission, the pulse and emotion of the company. All the people, all the things, all the space, everything within it creates this living, ever evolving, unfolding entity.

The new ideas we have today for office environments some times seem more contrived and almost shallow… you must be trendy, you must have the latest electronics, you must have flat screens everywhere, everything and everybody must be marketed or branded, you must have something really exotic or sexy about your business and space so people notice you and do what they are suppose to do for you.

Or will they?

Trendiness is one to handle with some caution. Trends last for a millisecond and then they are gone. With our new found frugality, companies want something with a little more staying power and depth. They want something that can be easily freshened up as the years go by without completely gutting the place every 4 years because it has horribly dated and aged itself.

With help from a good designer, a business can usually freshen up a space by introducing a newer color or two to itʼs existing palette. Remove the worn parts. From a fresh coat of paint to a hand painted mural by a local artist. That coat of paint could be an earth friendly coat of American Clay which mimics Venetian plaster and can cover a whole mess of evils. That mural or artwork could be something zen-like calming scenery to a video game action character exploding out of the wall shouting your corporate mantra. Throw in some new flooring here or there. Paint the ceiling tile even.

A few pieces of newer furniture can even do it, too. New-to-you seating in the lobby to new task chairs for the staff in a fun color. Re-fabric some of the systems furniture perhaps.

Re-do the floor plan a bit to re-arrange people and processes. It is amazing how the re-arrangement of the placement of people can change outcomes. A different view usually begets different ideas.

You donʼt have to do much usually to be impactive on your audience or your own staff … a little bit of verve can put some vim in everyoneʼs step and attitude.

Furniture Soupʼs previously enjoyed office furniture is a variety of great A-grade desks, cubicles, seating, files, etc. that has been acquired by the Soup from all kinds of large corporations and businesses. The product is then purchased by our customers in an “as-is” condition to fill their office environments. We help our customers by creating an office space that is totally budget conscious, environmentally conscious, attractive and efficient to its employees and visitors.

Businesses purchase this sustainable office furniture to go green. Pre-owned office furniture has practically zero impact on the environment. There is no manufacturing process of any sort that the product goes through except to freight it from itʼs location to your facility. It is a purely re-useable product. It easily earns LEED points if the business is applying for any kind of LEED building certification.

A vast amount of inventories come from Fortune 500 companies and other top grade corporate businesses across the U.S. and Canada. We freight them into our showroom and warehouse or straight to a customerʼs site to be installed. The Soup has acquired office furniture inventories originally from MicroSoft, Blue Cross Blue Shield Corporate, Vanguard Healthcare, GE Corporate Office, and many many more.

We shop and hand pick inventories based upon overall condition, product type and style, fabric colors and finishes. From Haworth, Herman Miller, Steelcase, Teknion, Knoll and many more manufacturers, we have created very attractive environments for our clients with their lines … the second or third time around. We have had loads of experience to find the right product for particular customerʼs needs and solutions.

Pre-owned inventories offer countless ways to help a client save money, create a great corporate look, possess a top quality product without breaking the budget. We design the environment with a blend of preowned, remanufactured, and new inventories to capitalize on style, colors, finishes and costs for our clientʼs interior environment projects. The Soup has access to new green products with high recycled content. These products include all kinds of seating, fabrics, to systems furniture and carpet tile.

One of my architectural buddies likes to have Berks Lancaster Green Building Association gatherings at the Soup. He has always said to me since his first visit, how comfortable our offices and showroom are for conversing and exchanging ideas. I have agreed with him on that one. With an environment filled with top notch pre-owned office furniture, wide and wild variety of carpet tile with an eclectic collection of accessories and artwork. Its the kind of environment that stimulates thinking and creating. With some tweaks, any business can have the same feel, same verve as I like to call it.

A potential client could be sitting at a desk, table, and/or other piece with a totally cool history and that has had itʼs first ding in it. The colors, textures, and finishes all mingle together almost naturally. With pre-owned office furniture like pre-owned cars … you only drive it like you stole it after the first dent. It just has different karma. And, your brain knows it without you acknowledging it. It just happens that way.

Itʼs as low tech as you can get and great for the earth. It simply does it for you.