Herman Miller Ergon 3 Chairs - Environmental Product Summary - Manual

Our sustainability goals by the year 2020:
• Zero carbon footprint
• Zero landfill
• Zero hazardous waste generation
• Zero air emissions (VOCs)
• Zero process water use
• 100 percent renewable electrical energy use via renewable
energy credits and a power purchase agreement
• Company buildings constructed to a minimum LEED Silver certification
• 100 percent of sales from DfE approved products
Environmental Product Summary
Ergon 3 ® Chair
Design Story: The Origin of Ergonomic Office
Seating
In 1976, Herman Miller’s Ergon chair introduced
ergonomics to office seating. Bill Stumpf designed
the Ergon for both comfort and user health. The chair
quickly and easily adjusted to various body sizes
and proportions, and reduced physiological stress by
providing exceptional spinal support and unrestricted
blood flow. Ergon set a new standard for comfortable,
healthy, and visually appealing ergonomic seating.
Today’s Ergon 3 chair maintains the original’s proven
design while adding new sizes and capabilities to
support a diverse, technology-based workforce.
Throughout the Ergon 3 chair’s design and development
process, we emphasized environmental responsibility
in raw material selection and sourcing. Preference
was given to materials derived from renewable and
sustainable sources.
Herman Miller’s Design Protocol
Our commitment to corporate sustainability naturally
includes minimizing the environmental impact of each
of our products. Our Design for Environment team (DfE)
applies environmentally sensitive design standards to
both new and existing Herman Miller products.
The DfE Design Protocol goes beyond regulatory
compliance to thoroughly evaluate new product
designs in four key areas:
• Material Chemistry and Safety of Inputs—
What chemicals are in the materials we specify, and
are they the safest available?
• Disassembly—Can we take products apart at the
end of their useful life, to recycle their materials?
• Recyclability—Do the materials contain recycled
content, and more importantly, can the materials be
recycled at the end of the product’s useful life?
• LCA—Have we optimized the product based on the
entire life cycle?
level ® Certification
Ergon 3 is certified level 1. The level conformance mark
ensures a comprehensive, independent, and impartial
assessment of the environmental and social impacts
of a product.
Material Content
The Ergon 3 chair’s components are constructed from
plastic, steel, aluminum, and foam/textile.
The Ergon 3 chair is up to 90 percent recyclable at
the end of its useful life.
Ergon 3 consists of 23-percent recycled materials.
The recycled content breaks down to 17-percent post-
consumer and 6-percent pre-consumer content.
z
1
Y
® Y and Z and Ergon 3 are among the registered trademarks of Herman Miller, Inc.
Cradle to Cradle Certified CM is a certification mark licensed by the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute.
® level is a trademark of BIFMA International.
® GREENGUARD is a registered trademark of the GREENGUARD Environmental Institute.
© 2012 Herman Miller, Inc., Zeeland, Michigan
STEEL 56%
PLASTIC 28%
FOAM 10%
ALUMINUM 6%
POST-CONSUMER
RECYCLED CONTENT 17%
PRE-CONSUMER
RECYCLED CONTENT 6%