Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility at Herman Miller

Environmental Sustainability

As Herman Miller continues its "Journey toward Sustainability," designing our products with consideration for their environmental impact remains a central corporate strategy. Our long-term emphasis on product durability, innovation, and quality demonstrates that our company has effectively designed for the environment for decades. (As proof, one need only consider the many classic Herman Miller products manufactured in the 1950s and still in use today.)

Our focus now is on maintaining our high standards while incorporating increasingly more environmentally sustainable materials, features, and manufacturing processes into new product designs. Our Design for the Environment (DfE) team, which is responsible for developing environmentally sensitive design standards for new and existing Herman Miller products, has initiated a protocol to guide this effort. One of our design tenets is durability. We design for repeated use, repair, maintenance, and reassembly using standard parts, as often as possible.

Community Impact and Philanthropy

For as long as we can remember, Herman Miller has supported volunteer initiatives ranging from highway and river cleanups to youth mentoring programs and home building projects. We give each of our employees 16 paid hours a year to work with the charitable organizations of their choice. We track our efforts annually, and in May 2016, we exceeded our three-year goal of 60,000 employee volunteer hours.