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Our Products Reflect Stewardship
Product stewardship is our focus. We are actively pursuing ways to minimize the
impact of our products on the environment. This means designing products that
save resources, have longer life, use clean manufacturing, meet indoor air
requirements, recycle easily and include many other sustainable attributes.
Print Version of National's Sustainability
Information
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Indoor Air Quality and More
National is committed to providing quality products that will improve indoor
air quality, increase the use of sustainable materials and reduce impacts to
climate change. In the area of indoor air quality, National has achieved
certification on a variety of products to the Indoor Advantage program from
Scientific Certification Systems (SCS) by meeting the BIFMA Furniture Emissions
Standard (FES) for office furniture.
Many other National products earn the more stringent Indoor Advantage Gold
mark from SCS for meeting the FES requirements and also the California 01350
Special Environmental Requirements and Collaborative for High Performance
Schools (CHPS).
In further support of our commitment to indoor air quality, National recently
introduced IntegraClear, an environmentally-friendly, high performance finish.
This preeminent, water-based UV finish process plays an integral role in National
achieving certifications to industry sustainable standards today and in the future.
Moving beyond indoor air quality and into a more holistic view of product
sustainability includes the areas of material and energy use, greenhouse
gas impacts, human and eco-system health considerations, and social responsibility.
The BIFMA E3-2008 Business and Institutional Furniture Sustainability Standard
addresses all of these topics. Modeled after the LEED building rating system,
furniture products are evaluated against a variety of credit criteria (after
first meeting certain prerequisites), accumulating points toward increasing
levels of recognition associated with reduced environmental impact. National
is proud to have earned certification to this Sustainability Standard for the
majority of our portfolio, as recognized by SCS with their Sustainable Choice
label. A number of National lines carry the Sustainable Choice Silver level
certification, with others earning the higher level Sustainable Choice Gold
certification.
Recycled Material Content for National Products
National makes use of two kinds of recycled materials in our products: Post Consumer
and Pre Consumer. Post Consumer material is waste that has become material for
another product; it has already served a useful purpose. An example of Post Consumer
material is aluminum cans that are made into new cans. Pre Consumer material is
waste that is left over when producing something else. An example of Pre Consumer
material is fabric scraps from cutting material for a chair. The scraps are then
used to make trunk liners for cars.
Below is a chart of National products and the percentages of Post Consumer and Pre
Consumer content.
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Post Consumer
Content |
Pre Consumer
Content |
Total Percentage of
Recycled Content |
| Executive Desk Seating |
11.7% |
12.7% |
24.4% |
| Task Seating |
11.6% |
0% |
11.6% |
| Lounge Seating |
0.3% |
0.8% |
1.1% |
| Guest Seating |
1.5% |
0% |
1.5% |
| Stacking Seating |
13.7% |
17% |
30.7% |
| Veneer & Laminate Casegoods |
1.7% |
80.6% |
82.3% |
Print version of National products Post and Pre Consumer content
Environmental Data Sheets are available on the product detail webpage for
each series. They include detailed recycled material content information.
Additionally, copies of the appropriate Certificates can be found for each
of the series below by clicking on the series name and looking under the
sustainability heading on the product detail webpage for each series.
Print Version of National's Certified Products
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Indoor Advantage Gold National™ products include:
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Indoor Advantage National™ products include:
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Sustainable Choice - Gold National™ products include:
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Sustainable Choice - Silver National™ products include:
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