Herman Miller plans to redesign their entire line of furniture using cradle to cradle design, which means designing the entire lifecycle of the materials. Ultimately it means every part is either recyclable or biodegradable. Last year Herman Miller had redesigned 6% of their products. Now they are up to 16%.
Herman Miller Celle Chair
I’m no chair connoisseur, but I have spent some time in an Aeron chair which I thought was pretty good (not everyone agrees) Designed before the cradle to cradle protocol was adopted, it takes two hours to disassemble.
Disassembled Herman Miller Mirra Chair. Recyclables on the left. Nonreusable parts on the right.
The Mirra chair was their first attempt at redesign. It can be taken apart in 15 minutes. Only 4% of the parts are not recyclable. The Celle chair was the second redesign. It’s even simpler to disassemble to reuse the parts.
Herman Miller biodegradable Kira Fabric made from corn
At this point, they don’t have a system in place to take the chairs back and recycle them, but they plan to in the future.
For more details, see this transcript of a talk by Scott Charon and Susan Lyons.
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