Local Impact, Global Thinking: Our Community Environmental Initiatives

The interiors industry is one of the world leaders in building awareness and driving a greater sense of stewardship for our environment.  dancker believes we should play a proactive role and contribute to improving our environment. We’ve transformed the way we think, the way we work, and the way we go to market.

For dancker, preserving the environment is a daily commitment that we proudly fulfill through both our own internal policies and by promoting sustainable design. We hope to positively impact the environment while helping advance the goals of our clients by incorporating sustainable design concepts and providing products designed to strengthen environmental and human health, promote social responsibility, and achieve economic prosperity. That’s why every step of the way – through design, manufacturing, delivery, and product lifecycle – we consider the impact of our work on people and on the environment and uncover opportunities to make things better.

dancker’s environmental policy began with assessing our business: our offices, warehousing and distribution facilities, delivery and installation procedures, and business processes.

OFFICE INITIATIVES

Enough small steps cover great distances. Throughout our office locations, we:

• Use energy efficient light bulbs throughout our facilities
• Purchase and use 100% recycled content copy paper and other products with recycled content where applicable
• Provide reusable cups and mugs to our employees
• Recycle waste including used ink and toner cartridges. All recycled waste is supported from its point of origin through to our waste collector.

We educate our employees on our impact on the environment and what we can do as individuals to make a positive impact today and tomorrow.  We’ve held educational seminars from manufacturers, and highlight our corporate environmental efforts at companywide meetings.

In March 2012, a 90,000 sf solar array was installed on the roof of dancker’s experience center in Somerville, NJ. The system, consisting of 2,576 solar panels, generates 674 kW in electricity to help provide power to our corporate headquarters. Any surplus electricity is fed back into the power grid for distribution.

WAREHOUSING AND DISTRIBUTION FACILITIES

From a delivery, installation, and warehousing standpoint, we’ve initiated many procedures to affect our impact on the environment. dancker sorts and recycles all cardboard, glass, plastic, metal and wood waste to reduce environmental impact.

• Approximately 292 tons of corrugated cardboard is recycled annually, assisted by having two cardboard balers for ease of recycling.
• One baler for plastic material to reduce the amount of daily waste
• Approximately 100 tons of metal is recycled annually

In 2015, dancker reduced its carbon footprint by 40% by installing a special compactor that pulverizes all wood and trash. Instead of having three to six 30-yard dumpers every week for trash, we now have one 40-yard compactor full of trash at the end of the week. This decision also created a safer work environment, as employees can load the compactor from a platform instead of climbing on top of a dumpster to clear extra space.

DELIVERY AND INSTALLATION PROCEDURES

We instituted a “no idling” practice with all our delivery vehicles to cut down on emissions and energy consumption when arriving at stops and/or waiting for loading dock access. We also maintain a long-standing practice of facilitating product deliveries directly to our clients’ sites whenever possible. This practice reduces energy consumption and emissions, as well as reduces packaging since many components shipped direct can be blanket wrapped. When products need to be brought into our facility for phased delivery or other reasons, we consolidate redelivery shipments as much as possible.

 BUSINESS PROCESSES

 Customer Guidance

We help clients understand choices that are more environmentally friendly and affordable. Being responsible doesn’t necessarily mean our clients have to spend more on a project – many environmentally friendly products are becoming more cost competitive. With our ability to provide sustainable product offerings, we know we can deliver an overall project that meets budget and is also environmentally sound.

With our extensive product knowledge, we help customers understand which products are truly sustainable, as opposed to “green wash” marketing tactics. We can also assist customers to reuse furnishings when and where it makes sense as a practical and easy way to make environmentally sound choices. We partner with brokers who assist us in finding “new” customers for an existing customer’s obsolete furniture to extend the useful life of many first-generation products. 

Manufacturer Partnerships

We partner with and rely on more than 400 partners worldwide to manufacture, test, ship, and recycle the products they design. We expect our partners to implement a consistent environmental protection management program, comply with environmental standards and work in a systematic, goal-oriented and proactive manner to reduce the impact to the environment, including pollution prevention and waste minimization.

We are proud to be a Steelcase Premier Partner. Steelcase offers more “cradle to cradle” certified products than any other company, inclusive of non-furniture related companies.  Steelcase also conducts life cycle assessments and is actively engaged in understanding their products’ material chemistry, as well as the impact of the processes used to bring these products to market. Having already achieved carbon neutrality, Steelcase has announced new science-based targets to become carbon negative by 2030.

dancker believes fostering an internal culture of environmental responsibility and offering the marketplace economically practical solutions that are environmentally sound are the two best methods we can support in continuing to have a positive impact on our environment.