AHFA Honors LZB's Miller, Flexsteel for Environmental Efforts

December 15, 2010  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in Green on December 16, 2010

The American Home Furnishings Alliance has honored Rod Miller of La-Z-Boy (NYSE: LZB), and Flexsteel (NASDAQ-GM: FLXS) for environmental achievement.

At the Dec. 1-2 AHFA Sustainability Summit in Asheville, N.C., Miller, director of environmental affairs for La-Z-Boy Inc., received the Environmental Leadership Award, which each year goes to an individual who demonstrates leadership within the environmental community, takes an active role in task groups and participates in committee projects.

Miller has more than 25 years of professional engineering experience. His role at La-Z-Boy Inc. is to ensure responsible environmental stewardship by integrating environmentally sound and sustainable business practices into the company's daily business decisions. He has piloted 11 of the company's facilities through AHFA's EFEC (Enhancing Furniture's Environmental Culture) environmental management program.

"Rod's expertise, knowledge and insights have been critical in helping AHFA develop various industry advocacy efforts, ranging from our involvement on boiler regulations to formaldehyde," said AHFA Vice President Bill Perdue. "His progressive and visionary leadership has propelled La-Z-Boy to the forefront of the sustainability movement as an example of careful and concerned environmental stewardship."

Miller serves on the Board of Examiners that audits EFEC and Sustainable by Design companies. He also serves on AHFA's Advisory Committee on the Environment and has been a part of work groups that have hammered out industry positions on a variety of regulatory issues. He also has assisted in development of the product registration guidelines for AHFA's new Eco3Home product registration program.

Flexsteel received the Environmental Excellence Award for corporate environmental performance. This award recognizes an AHFA member company that embraces the AHFA message of excellence and, as a company, is on the leading edge of environmental compliance and performance.

Flexsteel was the first AHFA member company to implement the EFEC program at a contract division, its Starkville, Miss., commercial seating factory. EFEC also was implemented at the company's plant and corporate office in Dubuque, Iowa, as well as at plants in Riverside, Calif., Dublin, Ga., and Harrison, Ark. In addition, Flexsteel implemented EFEC at the DMI corporate office in Louisville, Ky., as well as at a DMI plant and warehouse in Huntingburg, Ind. It was the largest number of separate facilities to complete the EFEC program simultaneously.

Benefits of EFEC included a 51 percent reduction in landfill waste, equating to 105 pounds saved per employee per month. This reduction was achieved January to June 2009 as compared to the same six-month period in 2008. In addition, Flexsteel reduced its electrical usage by 3.8 percent, or 35 kilowatt hours per employee per month. Water consumption was reduced by 17.2 percent, or 86 gallons per employee per month. Reductions in all of these measures have continued in subsequent years.

AHFA also recognized two supplier companies for their contributions to furthering the Alliance's environmental initiatives in 2010: The Shelton Group of Knoxville, Tenn.; and Verisae of Minneapolis, Minn.

The Shelton Group has been working with AHFA for more than a year to develop the marketing messages behind the Alliance's new Eco3Home program. The company designed the Eco3Home logo, marketing materials and website. The Shelton Group was founded 18 years ago by Suzanne Shelton as an advertising agency devoted entirely to motivating mainstream consumers to make sustainable choices. Today the agency develops brand positioning, advertising, direct marketing and interactive media for a wide range of clients that have included Andersen Windows, Johnson & Johnson, Energy Star and the American Institute of Architects.  

Verisae assists companies in achieving their corporate sustainability objectives by providing asset, energy and carbon management software integrated into a single technology platform. This platform is optimized to meet the unique needs of global enterprises with assets spanning a large geographic footprint. The company has partnered with AHFA to offer educational webinars and a custom "carbon calculator" to help member companies understand and begin to impact their carbon footprint.