Herman Miller Aside Chairs - Environmental Product Summary User Manual

Aside, Chair

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

Aside

Chair

Design Story: Style that’s Smartly Sustainable

Mark Goetz’s design of Herman Miller’s Aside

chair

challenges preconceptions about secondary seating.
He proved that you could have a luxurious, good-
looking, and durable side chair that’s also priced less
than most competitive models.

Goetz reasoned that people in workstations, meetings,
collaborative spaces, and reception areas all deserve
a comfortable seat—whether they stay for moments
or hours. So he went for supportive contours, a high
and wide back, and a double-thick seat cushion, all of
which contribute to Aside’s stylish profile.

Environmentally speaking, Aside is strongly influenced
by Herman Miller’s Design for the Environment standards
(outlined below) in order to meet the customer’s
needs in a sustainably smart fashion.

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?

Material Content

The Aside chair’s components are constructed from
steel, plastic, aluminum, foam, and textile.

The Aside chair is up to

85 percent recyclable at the

end of its useful life.

Aside is comprised of

31-percent recycled materials.

This figure breaks down to 21-percent post-consumer
and 10-percent pre-consumer recycled content.

• Steel components contain approximately 35 percent

recycled content and are 100 percent recyclable.

• Die-cast aluminum components are typically made

from more than 95-percent recycled material and
are 100 percent recyclable.

• Most metal components have a powder-coat paint

finish that emits negligible volatile organic compounds
(VOCs).

® Y and Z and Aside are among the registered trademarks of Herman Miller, Inc.

® GREENGUARD is a registered trademark of the GREENGUARD Environmental Institute.

STEEL 56%

PLASTIC 19%

ALUMINUM 12%

FOAM 12%

TEXTILE

POST-CONSUMER

RECYCLED CONTENT 22%

PRE-CONSUMER

RECYCLED CONTENT