Journey toward Sustainability

At Herman Miller, we take our commitment to the environment seriously. That's why several years ago we set the goal of becoming a sustainable business, one that manufactures its products without reducing the capacity of the environment to provide for future generations.

Adopting sustainability as a corporate priority demands taking the long-term view; in a number of areas of our business, 100 percent earth-friendly materials and practices do not yet exist. However, with waste reduction, energy reduction, recyclable packaging, and other environmental initiatives underway now for more than a decade, we feel we are making progress.

We recognize that we still have a long way to go to reach our goal. Fortunately, we now have many of the processes in place, along with several decades of experience in environmental stewardship, to help guide us on our journey toward sustainability.

"Journey Toward Sustainability" (PDF 4.6 MB) is our report card to you on the success of our present efforts to achieve this goal. It describes Herman Miller's attempts to reduce, reuse and recycle, to be a good neighbor and corporate citizen.

A Legacy of Environmental Leadership

Herman Miller's environmental awareness can be traced back to our company's founder, D.J. DePree, a devoutly religious person who felt a personal concern for the world and everything in it. In the early 1950s he penned a statement of corporate values that declared Herman Miller "will be a good corporate neighbor by being a good steward of the environment."

Mr. DePree introduced several corporate practices that today are regarded as environmentally sensible. They include the mandate that windows be included in all Herman Miller buildings, including manufacturing sites, so that employees can benefit from natural light. He also declared that 50 percent of any Herman Miller corporate site be set aside as "green space."

Succeeding generations of our company's leadership and employee-owners have continued and even expanded upon D.J. DePree's legacy. When Mike Volkema assumed the leadership of Herman Miller, Inc., in 1995, he and his management team authored the Blueprint for Corporate Community. This declaration of corporate values clearly states that Herman Miller recognizes a responsibility to the environment, to the others who live in it, and to those who will follow. The Blueprint further affirms that our business decisions are constantly guided by this belief.

We now evaluate products from their earliest design stages for their material chemistry, ease of disassembly, and recylability. We also assess how the design of our buildings can be more energy-efficient and healthy for our employees and visitors.

Today, "living with integrity and respecting the environment" stands as one of our five core values. We believe that environmental sustainability and commercial success are not mutually exclusive ends, but instead should exist side-by-side in a mutually beneficial relationship. We are endeavoring to illustrate the truth of this statement by offering our own experience as an example.