Bassett Furniture Achieves Full EFEC Registration

October 17, 2010  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in Green on October 18, 2010

Bassett Furniture has implemented the EFEC furniture industry environmental management program at its Martinsville, Va., table plant, and its Bassett, Va., warehouse and corporate headquarters.

Last year Bassett implemented EFEC at its Newton, N.C., upholstery plant. All of the company's domestic facilities are now EFEC-registered. EFEC, or Enhancing Furniture's Environmental Culture, is a program created for the home furnishings industry by the American Home Furnishings Alliance. To achieve registration, companies must improve management of resources and raw materials; reduce energy and water consumption; and reduce waste disposal and associated costs.

"Each of our EFEC teams used the requirements outlined by AHFA to design an environmental program specific to their individual facility," said Maegan Hubbard, environmental project manager for Bassett and head of the EFEC implementation team. Hubbard also is a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) accredited professional, through a program sponsored by the U.S. Green Building Council.

"In a short period of time our facilities have seen significant progress toward their goals," she added. "They will continue to develop their programs internally as well as encourage awareness of the environment within the community."

Employee education is a key component of the EFEC program. An implementation team takes the lead in each facility, but the EFEC audit requires random interviews with employees to ensure everyone at every level understands the company€™s environmental goals and is participating in the improvement process.

"What happened at Bassett--as well as at every other EFEC facility we have audited this year--is that improvements ended up being made in the community outside the plant as employees realized the positive impact of the improvements they were making inside the plant," said AHFA vice president Bill Perdue, who oversees the association's environmental programs.

For example, one Bassett employee started a recycling program at a local church using the EFEC experience at Bassett. Another noted that employees have started recycling items at home, like aluminum cans, plastic bottles, newspaper and magazines.

Since beginning the EFEC program, landfill waste has been reduced by 33 percent at the corporate office. The warehouse has experienced a 28 percent reduction in landfill costs, and the Martinsville table plant has experienced a 70 percent reduction in landfill costs just since January.

In addition, the Martinsville plant has recycled 4,533 pounds of Styrofoam since July and 29 tons of paper and cardboard from April through August. This recycling activity saved the plant over $9,000 in landfill costs.

"Both our corporate community and the wider communities where our facilities are located have benefited from EFEC," said Bassett President and CEO Rob Spilman.

EFEC, which requires participants to make continual improvements in order to retain their registration, was implemented at 26 different furniture manufacturing locations in 2009 and has been implemented at seven additional locations so far in 2010.