Nieuwsbericht

Cradle-to-cradle certificates for Ahrend office chairs

Ahrend 230

The Ahrend 230 office chair was designed by Kees de Boer. It was introduced in 2002, and upgraded in 2006. The Ahrend 230 is a synthesis of modern design and ergonomics. It is very comfortable, and comes with a wide choice of accessories, paint colours and materials. Thanks to the quality of the materials, the timeless design and the attractive price, the Ahrend 230 has become one of Ahrend’s best-selling office chairs worldwide following the success of the legendary Ahrend 220, which enjoyed sales of more than a million throughout the world since its introduction. The Ahrend 230 complies with the most stringent standards for ergonomic adjustment, the CEN-1335 and the Dutch Practical Guideline NPR-1813 column 2 (Dutch work chairs). The countless possible adjustments make the chair suitable for every individual user and every working posture.

Thanks to the redesign in 2006 and various other measures, the Ahrend 230 is now optimally suited for dismantling. After a pilot project with Ahrend’s C2C partner the waste collection and recycling group Van Gansewinkel, a number of changes have been made to facilitate dismantling and reuse; for example, the seat is no longer glued in place.

Ahrend 250

 The successful Ahrend 250 chair was designed by Frans de la Haye and introduced at the prestigious Salone del Mobile in Milan in 2006. It is an updated version of the legendary Ahrend 240 ‘Centennial’ chair which was introduced twenty years before, in 1996, to mark the hundredth anniversary of Ahrend’s existence.

One visitor to the Salone del Mobile remarked of the Ahrend 250 during its introduction there, "This chair makes sitting the most attractive posture between standing and lying down." Frans de la Haye, the designer of the Ahrend 250, thought that this remark neatly encapsulates the essence of the Ahrend 250. This office chair is very comfortable to sit on, thanks to use of the translucent man-made ‘velum’ material for the upholstery. This material moulds itself to the user’s back, thus providing extra support. The Ahrend 250 is further provided with height- and depth-adjustable lumbar support. The backrest and the adjustable lumbar support, together with the adjustable seat height and depth, the synchronous mechanism, the weight adjustment and the triple adjustment of the armrests, ensure a very high level of ergonomic design and comfort. The chair meets the requirements of Dutch Practical Guideline NPR1813 for Dutch work chairs, is made of recyclable materials and is designed to be easily dismantled.

Ahrend put the chair on show in Milan in 2008 with a netweave backrest.

Cradle-to cradle (C2C) certification

The C2C philosophy rests on three basic ideas: ‘Waste = Food’, the use of sustainable energy, and support and encouragment of biological, cultural and intellectual diversity.  Before a product can be awarded a C2C certificate, it is closely vetted in five different areas:

1. What materials and processes are used? Materials with an adverse impact on the environment such as PVC and Cr(VI) – hexavalent chromium – are not allowed, for example. Ahrend has banned these materials from the production process of the Ahrend 230.
2. What materials can be reused? Ahrend has been committed to ecodesign principles since 1993. This means that product reuse and recycling are taken into account right from the design and material selection phase. The Ahrend 220 office chair, launched in 1994, was the first Ahrend product to be created in accordance with ecodesign principles.
3. Use of sustainable (‘green’) energy in policy and in practice. Ahrend uses exclusively green electrical energy in the production of the Ahrend 230 and the Ahrend 250.
   4. Lower water consumption and improved quality of waste water in policy and in practice. Ahrend has achieved substantial cuts in water consumption (65% less overall in 2009 than in 2008; the corresponding figure for the Zwanenburg production plant is 22%). The waste water quality has also been much improved.
4. Generic CSR policy (social and environmental targets, external reporting). Ahrend has been implementing a successful environmental policy with concrete results since 1990 (see graphs). Ahrend was one of the companies that have worked together right from the start to help to give shape to ISO 26000, the new international Corporate Social Responsibility standard that will come into effect at the end of 2010. In addition, Ahrend expects a lot of its Next Life programme, which aims to give old furniture a new lease of life, for example by re-upholstering chairs or stripping the old paint off cabinets and repainting them in an environmentally friendly process. Ahrend 230 and Ahrend 250 are ideally suited for the application of Next Life.