Sustainability

Climate change

Steelcase is committed to lowering greenhouse gases emitted in the creation of our products.

We’ve established an internal carbon core team, including an executive oversight committee, to drive and monitor progress toward the goals associated with our climate commitment.​

We engage key suppliers to set their own science-based targets.

Circular economy + Product end of use

Steelcase is committed to improving product sustainability, transparency and optimization from design and material selection through end of use to promote circularity and reduce waste.

Steelcase offers one of the strongest extended warranties in the industry and designs, manufactures, and sells products that are built to last.

Sustainable product design

The Steelcase Sustainable Design framework ensures our products are designed with consideration of life cycle thinking and cradle-to-cradle principles:

• Source materials responsibly
• Minimize global warming and other life cycle impacts
• Ensure material health
• Enable end-of-use strategies

Consumer health + Wellbeing

Steelcase strives to lead the industry in consumer health and safety performance. We build trust through transparency in material health and chemistry and by certifying products to demonstrate our commitment to sustainability.

Steelcase products are designed and tested with safety in mind, ensuring compliance with applicable codes and industry standards as well as internal performance requirements. Products are tested internally, by consultants and by independent third-party evaluators.

Impact Story: Producing renewable energy on site

The Rosenheim, Germany facility is our first manufacturing plant with on-site renewable energy production.

The 30 kW solar power plant generates 28,500 kWh per year, resulting in savings of 15 t CO2e emissions annually, supporting our efforts to mitigate clime change, while reducing energy costs amounting to a five-digit sum.

Impact Story: Paper packaging

The Solo Work from Home desk is packaged using only cardboard and paper, avoiding plastic entirely and incorporating a high content of recycled material.

Customized cardboard packaging protects the product efficiently, regardless of the selected shipping options.

Heart-shaped pillows

Breast cancer is and charities around the world offer a variety of programs and initiatives to support patients fighting this disease.

Since 2018,Steelcase employees from France have been supporting the League Against Cancer’s ‘Coussins-coeur’ initiative by sewing heart-shaped pillows and donating them to The Cancer Institute of Strasbourg (ICANS), where patients with breast cancer are being treated.

Impact is amplified when social and environmental initiatives are combined. Building on the heart pillow initiative, we brought an environmental element into play by using wadding scrap and surplus from our manufacturing facility in France as padding materials for the pillows. By doing so, we prevented valuable materials from becoming waste and reduced demand on new materials.

The pillow is designed to be placed under the arm after surgery, to ease the pain and tension during recovery. The heart-shaped pillow also offers emotional support and shows patients fighting this disease that others are thinking about them. Following a recommendation from the ICANS, we started writing encouraging messages personalized by the participating employees, which the patients receive alongside the heart pillows.

This initiative has grown from one Steelcase employee sewing pillows for the League Against Cancer, to being part of our company’s Social Innovation Program and has resulted in more than 550 pillows being donated between 2018-2022 to ICANS. We are committed to positively impacting our communities by supporting various causes, making volunteering accessible to all employees and acting collectively to amplify the impact.

Tree Planting

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing products is one way we address climate change. We’re now on a path towards reducing the absolute carbon emissions from our own operations by 50% by 2030, from 2019 levels. This target was independently validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), meaning it is in line with the trajectory needed to keep global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, which science has shown is necessary to prevent dangerous climate change impacts.

In addition to our corporate strategy to mitigate climate change and protect the environment, we’re also defining and implementing employee engagement initiatives that benefit the environment. For example, we had to cut down twelve old trees around the administrative building at our Sarrebourg plant in France. Twelve young trees were planted instead -- six Paulownia and six Liquidambars are now lining the way to the entrance, contributing beautiful color to the areaand improving the air quality. The Paulownia is a particularly remarkable tree because its oversized leaves have a much higher potential to absorb carbon dioxide from the air compared to other tree species.

To give everyone the opportunity to participate in the tree planting project, the company has offered its 400 employees the possibility to receive tree seeds as a gift and plant them at home or have the corresponding money donated to the ONF (Office National des Forêts), a French government agency, for trees to be planted in forests near Sarrebourg. The planted trees not only contribute to carbon dioxide sequestration but also to improve local biodiversity. To mark this occasion, all the staff received a stainless-steel water bottle, as another way to raise awareness of the need to reduce our environmental footprint.

Scrap fabric repurposing

Like all manufacturing processes, Steelcase operations generate scrap materials. Steelcase has a goal to reduce the waste generated in our own processes, and to achieve this goal, we’re prioritizing total scrap reduction and prevention actions. We’re continuously improving our technologies and refining our processes to utilize resources more efficiently.

As we’re working to improve our waste reduction strategies, we’re looking for opportunities to divert waste from landfill by donating to charities, recycling or repurposing. For example, we use the fabric scrap from our manufacturing processes in France to create cases, pouches, computer covers, and more recently, beautiful bags. These items make the perfect gift for our partners, visitors and employees and demonstrate how what would have been waste can be repurposed to extend the materials’ life span.

ESG Overview

Social

Governance

Impact Report