At Flexiform, we understand our impact upon the environment, and the ever-increasing importance that we all play our part to reverse climate change. For over a decade now, we’ve been monitoring, tracking and improving our environmental impact, striving to make our business as environmentally friendly and sustainable as possible. 

Our Environmental Commitment

In addition to compliance against all relevant legislation, regulations and our Business Policy Statement core value objectives, we endeavour to take positive action in reducing the impact on the environment and have a measurable programme of focused activities. This includes, but is not limited to;

  • The use of water, energy and other resources. 
  • The use of any products related to climate change. 
  • Waste production, both from our manufacturing and installation processes.
  • Transport and travel. 
  • Re-cycling initiatives from raw material to finish goods or waste. 
  • Supply chain evaluation of upstream processes (scope 3).

Sustainable development objectives are set by the Leadership Team and monitored within the monthly Leadership Team meetings for many areas of the business, including (but not limited to):

  • Widening and integrating all aspects of sustainable development initiatives into all our business operations. 
  • Ensuring that we comply with all relevant current and future legislation. 
  • Assessing other organisations strategies and learning from them. 
  • Setting and measuring performance against specific objectives. 
  • Developing our staff and our suppliers to understand our commitment to environmental issues and to sustainable development.

Our Environmental Literature

You can read more on our environmental commitments in our brochures:
Environmental Impact and Company Improvements
Product Carbon Footprint & Environmental Impact Assessments
Flexiform Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy

Environmental Achievements


Manufacturing

Our primary goal is to utilise and improve what we have. Our West Yorkshire manufacturing facility is located inside an old tram shed, of historical importance to the surrounding area. We believe it’s important to transform the existing building and structure over producing a new factory environment with harmful CO2 output. We have made significant improvements to our factory to improve efficiency and reduce the environmental impact including new heating systems, shutter doors, waste filter systems, efficient machinery, upgraded roofing and more. We’re also in the process of adding solar panels on the roof to produce our own energy.

You can see our full list of achievements in our Environmental Impact and Company Improvements brochure which is updated annually.

Sustainable office furniture

Sustainable office furniture

Product Sustainability

Our products are built to last, which is why we offer a minimum 10-year warranty on all of our manufactured furniture. By ensuring we manufacture high-quality, long-lasting furniture, we can ultimately reduce the environmental impact for ourselves and our clients. 

“The quality of the products that Flexiform manufactures I’m sure will last us for many years with trouble-free service” Helen Pool, Wakefield MD Council.

As we are a true manufacturer with specialist in-house skills, we’ve managed to repaint, reconfigure, and transform client’s existing furniture to fit their new office requirements, helping them drastically reduce the impact of their new office fit-out.


Recycling

Sustainability is not just about manufacturing techniques – recycling and reusing furniture and materials is also vital to lowering unnecessary and potentially harmful wastage. Like any manufacturer, minimising wastage is key for environmental goals and efficiency and we’ve always run our factory as “made to order” to reduce any product or materials waste. We donate any unwanted but functional furniture to charities and schools too.

As of 2021, we are a Zero to Landfill company. On average above 95% of all our waste is recycled, and the remaining non-recyclable components are converted into energy (EFW). We’ve also made small improvements such as removing the cardboard compactor, which makes it harder for the cardboard to get recycled. 

By minimising wastage, promoting recycling, and donating reusable furniture to charities and schools, our passion for sustainability goes beyond manufacturing practices – it is ingrained into our way of working throughout the business.

For a full list of factory improvements, environmentally friendly client projects, and recycling information, please see our brochure here.

Environmental Certifications

Flexiform is committed to continually improving our practices, reducing our impact on the environment and promoting sustainability, and we are certified by FIRA, FISP, FSC® and ISO14001.

Flexiform’s FSC® Certification

The Forest Stewardship Council® is a global forest certification system that assures consumers that the furniture is manufactured from timber and forest products produced from well–managed forests.

Flexiform ISO14001 Accreditation

ISO 14001:2015 demonstrates we are committed to reducing environmental impact and undertake audits evaluating our CO2 output, product life cycle through our Environmental Management System.

Flexiform FISP Accreditation

The Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme demonstrates that we are taking our environmental and corporate social responsibility obligations seriously. FISP is backed by the entire furniture industry and is the mark of sustainable excellence.