ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY STATEMENT

We and our parent company MAUSER OFFICE GMBH strive for excellence in every aspect of our business and we are committed to maintaining and improving our environmental practices wherever practicable.

As a business that operates on a worldwide basis, we are aware and accept the duty of care that we have, not only with regard to the people in our organisation and their families but also to the environment in which we operate. As a production orientated business, we do our utmost to actively participate in the preservation and regeneration of natural resources.

In this respect, a key issue is quality! Quality in the materials used. Quality in the design and quality in the craftsmanship during manufacturing. Quality in all these matters will ensure that our products will provide long, effective service well beyond the norm for our industry and do not need to be replaced.

All Mauser Group products are designed and manufactured with a view to the eventual safe disposal and/or recycling of the materials, plus industrial processes that avoid the production of hazardous waste materials. We accept this responsibility positively and in pursuing our overall business objectives we continue to:

• Comply with and where appropriate exceed national and EU environmental legislation and regulations.
• Encourage Staff and Suppliers to be aware of their responsibilities to the environment in all respects of their working lives.
• Set standards for our environmental performance to govern our operations and those of our Suppliers.
• Regularly review aspects of our activities, which have an environmental impact, assess performance and identify where further improvements can be made.
• When establishing the design brief for a new product, make the conservation of materials and the use of environmentally responsible materials key issues.

Our implementation of this policy can be seen in the positive measures and tough targets we have set ourselves in the design and manufacture of all of our products. One immediate result is a reduction in the quantity (by weight) of materials used in our furniture products of over 30% in the last 5 years.

Another is our use of water-based paint and the installation of a paint plant that reduces waste by nearly 40%. All lacquers used by us are free from heavy metals such as lead or cadmium and do not contain halides and therefore no chlorine compounds. The stove-enamelled surfaces are hygienic and easy to clean. They are extremely dense and are not susceptible to electrostatic charging. This means they do not attract dust and there are no pores in which dust can settle. Cleaning is easily effected by wiping with a damp cloth without using any additives. Steel is both hard and elastic and withstands continuous static and dynamic loads. Even humidity or temperature influences do not result in noticeable dimensional changes. All this reduces the cost of ownership and encourages its continued use.

Our furniture requires minimal maintenance. Moving parts operate either on ball bearings or plastic guides. We use steel-to-steel connections for repeated reconfiguration without any product deterioration.

Our attivo, allavoro and alerto seating programmes use no composite materials, which is the key to recycling, with all parts and materials separable to simplify recycling and safe disposal. We use the patented C-Gex upholstering procedure whereby the fabric cover is not glued to the padding but applied using an innovative stretch technique, that makes it easier to remove for cleaning, replacement or for recycling.

The Goldbach calcium sulphate raised access floor panels and LNA pedestal system is constructed from the waste material produced by power station cooling towers and themselves can be recycled.

Our principal material is steel which although requires considerable energy to produce has other key attributes which makes it one of the most environmentally friendly materials available to our industry;

• Steel is fully recyclable. But more than that it can be repeatedly re-introduced into the recycling process as often as is required without any loss in quality.
• It has an operational life of 5/10 times longer than alternative materials such as chipboard (which cannot be re-cycled) and MDF, and is free of formaldehyde emissions.
• It can be re-furbished in situ (without even removing the contents!) to further extend its useful life.
• More than 50% of the world's steel production is produced using recycled steel.
• It is the only material where the necessary infrastructure for recycling is immediately available almost anywhere in the world.

"You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs" is a platitude that for many years was bandied about manufacturing processes to justify the wasteful handling of valuable materials. These days are well and truly over! We have banished words like "refuse materials" and "waste materials" from the Company's vocabulary and have replaced them by the term "residual materials" which we separate, collect together and pass for recycling.

While at the moment it is not possible to totally eliminate the use of synthetic materials, we only use first-rate brands and we ensure they are clearly labelled enabling them to be reclaimed at the end of the products useful life.

Packaging materials are minimised or are of a re-usable type and our delivery and installation sub-contractors have strict procedures for their removal and disposal only to authorised contractors and must provide signed documentation from these contractors.

Deliveries from the factory are always full loads and wherever practical they are made direct to the site of intended use. This not only reduces fuel usage, it eliminates double-handling and potential damage, and therefore also reduces our costs!

Small add-on requirements are delivered to our UK distribution centre and delivered to the site by smaller vehicles by our fitters who also complete the installation. Again, minimising the number of journeys and ultimately reducing our costs.

We do not pay lip service to this policy, but seek to incorporate environmental issues into our ethos and to take advantage of the commercial opportunities offered.