Let’s be honest “The Influence of Store Furniture on the Natural Environment” is not something that makes headlines very often. You just make them, place them in the chosen corner of the store and then put things on them. What’s there to think about?
However, as with many other things, the devil is in the details. And there are so many details…
As the name Perfecta suggests, we feel responsible not just for our business but also for the environment that we all live in. That’s why our care extends also to our products – how they are made, used, and finally – disposed of.
Which brings us back to the details that I have mentioned earlier. Details that make up any process. Each of these small steps is an opportunity to reduce our environmental footprint and be more sustainable. And here, at Perfecta, we are not used to wasting opportunities…
Lest you think that this is just a nice, trendy talk – corporate eco-babble – I’ve put together a brief overview of how Perfecta makes sure that the world we live in is a good place to live – not just for us, but for our children too.
GoGreen
Philosophy. It’s the foundation of everything we do. Our philosophy of reducing our carbon footprint is called GoGreen. We have created it to be as complete as possible, because only then will its impact on our operations be truly real. That is why the GoGreen policy covers not only production preparation, assembly, logistics or what happens to our product afterwards, but also our day-to-day operations – from the way we consume printer paper to the means of transport we use to move between the workplace and home.
These two perspectives – the product perspective and the company perspective – are the lenses through which we look at everything we do.
Design
Let’s start at the beginning, i.e. how our furniture is designed. It is at this stage that an effective reduction of the carbon footprint is born. When designing, we try to reduce the number of raw materials that will be needed to produce a piece of furniture. Thinner metal sheet with a similar load-bearing capacity as the thicker one? Truss instead of a solid surface? All these design decisions generate real savings!
But to be able to reduce your carbon footprint, you first need to understand it as well as possible. That is why we analysed one of our products from this point of view – the perfect.ONE tobacco display rack. We took everything into account – from the extraction of the ore used to make the steel from which the furniture is constructed to the disposal process. The results were surprising, and we will share them with you soon!
Recycling
When we design our furniture, we also think about what happens to it after it has finished its service in the retail outlet. By cutting cumbersome materials from the design, we make our products easier to recycle. For this reason, we use lightweight aluminium and polyamide structures instead of PVC. It is also important to us to replace traditional materials with ecological ones, e.g., where possible we use materials made from corn waste instead of virgin plastics. We also strive to ensure that the plastic we use in the injection moulding machines is approximately 30% recycled. In addition, we emboss markings on the components of our furniture to facilitate later recycling. In this way, in a few years’ time, when our products reach the end of their life, there will be no doubt as to which fraction a particular fragment belongs to.
Small steps lead to meaningful results.
Augmented reality
We are surrounded by modern technologies – some are useful, others less so. In Perfecta, we use them to implement our GoGreen policy.
What am I talking about?
I’m talking about Augmented Reality (AR)!
Whenever possible, we build our prototypes in computer memory and test them in an AU environment. This saves raw materials that would otherwise have to be used to create a physical prototype of a piece of furniture or appliance. And we eliminate the risk of someone hitting their finger with a hammer…
Saving resources
The scope of design also includes the optimisation of cuts or, using a more specialist vocabulary, nesting. If it sounds serious, this is because it is serious. It is an art of arranging the components to be cut or punched from the sheet in such a way as to minimise the loss of unused material. Do it right, and you will save up to 15% of raw materials, just like us!
As you can see, we can generate savings without getting up from the drawing board and taking your hand off the mouse.
Production
This is another step in our process and another crucial point in the GoGreen policy. Although our designs are efficient and ecological in themselves, we are also able to show our concern for the environment in the production process.
This is thanks, for example, to the use of more efficient machines, which enable us to save up to 52% energy.
We have also taken on waste. Not only do we monitor it closely so that we know everything about it, but we have also increased the number of fractions into which we divide the rubbish. This significantly increases the efficiency of recycling, and consequently generates less waste that ends up in the landfill. In doing so, we have planned for Perfecta to stop generating mixed waste by 2025. An ambitious goal – just the way we like it.
Logistics
Once the product has been designed and manufactured, it still needs to be delivered to the customer. By packing vertically, rather than horizontally, we save space in transport, allowing us to carry more products in one trip.
And by using packaging machines and moving away from thick PVC film to thin stretch we use less material.
Office and operations
This area is both the bloodstream and the backbone of our company. It is here that ideas for eco-friendliness are born, and it is from here that the GoGreen philosophy radiates to all other departments.
But an office desk is not just a place where new directions are set. It is also one of the battlegrounds in our collective struggle for reducing Perfecta’s carbon footprint. The care for environmental protection touches all aspects of the company and its employees, including the work culture and even the way people travel to work.
One way to reduce the environmental impact is to limit the travels of our representatives. One trip from Poland to the UK generates 800 kg of CO2, so when it is not absolutely necessary, we prefer to use video conferencing and online presentations. It not only saves money but also time – after all, there are better ways to spend it than nervously wandering around airports.
We are also trying to reduce paperwork – the bane of many organisations. By printing documents double-sided, we manage to save 20% of paper. We have also moved away from using printed business cards and catalogues – in the age of the internet and digital solutions, we consider them an unnecessary anachronism!
The sources of energy used in organisation’s operations have a great impact on the carbon footprint. Heating is one of the biggest “energy devourers”, so starting this winter, Perfecta’s production hall will be heated with heat pumps. Natural heat from the environment will replace gas heating, thereby reducing our company’s carbon footprint. The heat pumps will be powered by photovoltaic panels. Outside the heating season, energy from the sun will power the machine hall, further reducing our environmental impact.
In addition, we have conducted an energy efficiency audit of the machinery and specialised installation. As a result, we optimised the lighting of the production hall. The changes are easy to see.
Another important part of our activities is promoting environmental awareness among employees. An eco-picnic for families or a competition for employees to cycle as many kilometres as possible is not only great fun, but also a real benefit! In addition, in order to encourage employees to commute by bicycle, we have built a shelter and bicycle racks in front of the company headquarters.
And if someone lives too far away to commute by bike, they can always carpool with a co-worker or use public transport! By changing the way Perfecta’s employees travel to work, we have reduced CO2 emissions from transport by a total of 1 tonne in July 2022 alone.
Do you know what the volume of a tonne of carbon dioxide is? Under the so-called “normal conditions”, a ball of 1 tonne of this gas would have a diameter of more than 10m and would therefore take up almost the entire employee car park!
As you can see, the Perfecta’s strategy is not just empty words. We are moving as quickly as possible to meet our environmental goals and are succeeding in doing so. We are already working on further targets for 2023 and beyond, because GoGreen is a long-term activity. There are still many opportunities for improving our influence of the environment by perfecting processes, technologies, and products.
We will get there; you can bet on it!
