Choosing the Right Partner for your Sustainable Decommissioning in 2024

In our last post we talked about planning as a key element in the formula for successful decommissioning projects in the new year. The next element in the formula is choosing the right specialists to fulfill each step of your project. But what roles do these specialists play?

What are the roles of your Decommissioning Partners?

We have already talked about the space designers and planners. But as your lease end date looms close, who else needs to be lined up and organized around your unique needs? Here are some key functions for which you need to assemble:

Project planning: Every leased space has logistical realities, time frames and disassembly factors that will impact you, leaving your premises broom swept and empty under the landlord’s terms. And those terms matter: Time to vacate and miss a date, and landlord’s penalties kick in. Your project planning partner needs to understand everything from your building’s specific hours for accessing freight elevators and loading docks to the facility’s street access. Every detail counts for a smooth project execution.

Inventory management: Particularly if you have multiple leased properties that may be candidates for consolidation and downsizing, managing an inventory of furniture that can be reallocated as needed across your facilities requires something more sophisticated than a spreadsheet.

TFX partners with Rheaply, a software company that offers a platform facilitating tenants to engage in "re-commerce" of furniture within their organization. Knowing what you have and where you have it makes it possible to respond to simple requests to re-use your own assets, rather than buy new furniture items at any stage of your leases. In cases where furniture is not reusable, our partnership with Rheaply enables TFX to provide a sustainable decommissioning option, creating a mutually beneficial solution for both organizations.

Remanufacture, Refurbishment and Reuse: A term that is gaining use in the industry is “circular economy”. At its heart it describes an economic system based on the reuse and regeneration of materials or products, especially as a means of extending production in a sustainable or environmentally friendly way.

This concept has certainly gained followers in the apparel business, in home furnishings and now in the world of real estate. (We even posted a guide to holiday gifting in the circular economy earlier this month!) Architects and builders have long embraced the idea of adaptive re-use, especially as it relates to buildings themselves.

In the business of decommissioning office furniture assets, regardless of their ultimate disposition, there is a role for experts who can re-manufacture and restore items to “as-new” condition, even providing warrantees close to original manufacturers’ guarantees. In the pursuit of sustainability in furniture management, the key goal in this part of the process is to extend the useful life of any item that can be salvaged and re-purposed, and not consign it to a landfill.

TFX is proud to be recognized as the largest furniture remanufacturing provider in the US, fulfilling that role. We are known for our unique wholly owned remanufacturing facility: a 100,000 square feet facility, fully under our quality control and supervision, leveraging our own staff specialists. These skilled artisans specialize in restoring items from prestigious brands such as Herman Miller, Knoll, and Haworth, adhering to the most elevated standards of corporate design excellence.

Liquidation, Recycling, and Sustainable Disposition of Furniture No Longer Needed: Even if you were to reallocate part of your inventory to a newly leased space, and you took advantage of remanufacturing services to bring the items to “as new” function and quality, inevitably there would be items that are beyond repair, or simply don’t have a useful place in your new office space.

In the old days when liquidators were essentially “junkmen”, once furniture no longer needed left tenants’ leased spaces, the disposition of that furniture was too often untraceable. And liquidation in itself is a funny way to describe what ultimately happens to your furniture assets. Nothing is more solid than stacks of chairs and desks you no longer have use for.

In an environment where sustainability is now a key corporate ESG goal, requiring rigorous documentation, facilities managers need partners who can prove the end destination of the items no longer needed. Many providers maintain relationships with charities all over the US to whom they can arrange donations. But there are only so many office chairs that any one non-profit can use, and at that, no one wants broken or worn out clearly used items just because they are free.

At TFX our network of charities and non-profits know that the donations we conclude with them include fully functioning, in many cases refurbished, furniture items with many potential years of re-use (not just worn-out junk they will too soon find themselves saddled with liquidating!)

Ultimately, when all simple re-allocation or donations are delivered and documented, and items with another life made possible by remanufacturing are even resold, there are the inevitably items or components that simply can’t be salvaged.

This is where the recycler comes in, who specializes in certifiable metal reclamation, environmentally preferred disposal of plastic components, or the bulk of that wood (our typical waste) is supplied to cogeneration power plants as a direct replacement for fossil fuels.

The goal here is simple: Diversion from landfill is the key metric. At TFX we aim for 90% landfill diversion on every project. And we authenticate the results.

Overall Management: With all these complex specialists to coordinate and hold accountable, perhaps the most important role of all is the specialist who can manage all aspects of your project, with their own staff, and certifiable accountability for the KPIs that count: on-time, on budget and sustainable execution of your decommissioning projects.

At TFX, we take on the role of fostering enduring relationships with our clients, and we take pride in the fact that they consistently return to us for recurring projects and long-term partnerships. If we can play that role for you, as you plan for 2024, please reach out to us at inquiry@tfxfurniture.com