Corporate Sustainability Efforts
American Seating is dedicated to continuous improvement in environmentalism practices. Some of our initiatives include:
- Membership in US Green Build Council (USGBC),West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum, Sustainable Manufacturers Users Groups (SMUG) and BIFMA
- Focused steering committee working toward BIFMA level® compliance
- Our powder coat painting systems have completely eliminated VOC’s from the finishing of our metal products
- Changed our metal pretreatment process to 100% phosphate-free rinse systems. Our new process completely eliminates phosphate contaminates in the discharge water
- Our new powder recovery system reduced powder consumption by 22.3% and therefore reduces landfill waste
- Over the past eight years we have reduced our process water consumption by nearly 80%
- We are systematically replacing our lighting in the manufacturing facility with low energy, high efficiency fluorescent lighting
- We have completely eliminated the use of solvent based paints, and eliminated formaldehydes within all adhesives, processes and manufactured materials.
- We are investigating heat recovery systems for our processes utilizing natural gas, again reducing fuel consumption and carbon emissions
- Although most of our products are very green already, we perform ongoing evaluations of our products to determine if we have an opportunity to increase recycled content or renewable materials.
- Provide a sustainable product profile for our Architectural Products where we calculate product composition as well as recycled content by weight.
- We are working with waste handling companies to increase the recycling of our waste
- We have renewed our efforts to reduce waste of all materials to less that 3%
- Selected a transportation company which is dedicated to transporting full truck loads with up to date equipment, to reduce carbon emissions from these vehicles
- Modified our plant ventilation and heating equipment to better monitor and control efficient use of energy.
- We have modified our shipping materials to reduce the amount of packaging and replaced plastic foam with recyclable biodegradable materials (paper products)
- Design for Environment – We incorporate DFE practices into new product development
- Design for Durability/Upgradeability – Our products are designed to last much longer than competitive products for a long and useful life, which means they can stand repeated service and repair rather than entering the waste stream earlier
- Design for Remanufacture – We design and manufacture products that can be refurbished rather than be destroyed at the end of their life cycle.
- Added recycling symbols to manufactured plastic chair parts to simplify recycling at the end of their life
- Implemented green cleaners through our contracted services
- All literature is printed on recycled paper and FSC certified paper when possible
- Promotional items are created from reclaimed materials