Choosing second-hand furniture for public authorities and businesses is a smart, sustainable decision that delivers long-term environmental benefits.
IMPACT Furniture, a department of Oxfam België/Belgique, provides a trade-in and resale service for quality office furniture for professionals who would like to have a strong social and environmental impact. After receiving these furniture, they dismantle and remove their components, including wood panels, metal and plastic to create new furniture. Their catalogue of upcycled furniture includes ergonomic chairs, meeting desks, office cabinets, and acoustic panels, all designed to meet contemporary aesthetic and functional standards.
A priority in IMPACT Furniture’s business model is to limit the environmental impact of their work. In their furniture catalogue, they remove the need for gluing or screwing, and design products that can be easily dismantled at end-of-life for optimal reuse and recycling of their parts. Additionally, they focus only on B2B partnerships to ensure that they can respond to a bulk order, and maximise the efficiency of their work and the reuse or upcycling rate of furniture they receive. An example of this partnership is their contract with the European Commission to furnish multiple offices in the Berlaymont Building, the Commission’s headquarters in Brussels.
As part of their upcycling work, IMPACT Furniture gives priority to employing people who face barriers in the labour market, such as people who have disabilities or were former prisoners, to provide them with new professional opportunities.
Read more about IMPACT Furniture and their upcycling work in our report on Social Enterprises’ Role in Furniture and Mattress Circularity.
