The public sector in Norway throws away around 7,000 tons of usable office furniture every year with a value of over NOK 100 million. The organization Fremtiden i våre hender points out that one of the main reasons so much office furniture is discarded is that public organizations are restructuring or relocating.
More and more organizations are taking action to reduce waste in their relocation processes. One of them is Bærum Municipality, which has carried out an ambitious reuse project where they have achieved as much as 80% reuse.
We have interviewed Christina Lage Dahl from SIGNAL, who has been the project manager for Bærum Municipality’s co-location project.
Tell us about Bærum Municipality’s reuse project.
The Municipal Building (Kommunegården), which now has 37,200 m² of floor space, has been completely rehabilitated as a BREEAM Outstanding project and adapted for the co-location of 43 services from 6 locations, with a total of 1,350 employees. The project is Norway’s largest reuse project for furniture to date.
What role did you have in Bærum Municipality’s relocation project?
SIGNAL played a major role in the project as workplace consultants and designing interior architects. We assisted from the early planning phase through to completion and move-in, which meant we took part in all phases of the project – from defining goals and success criteria to detailed design and the relocation process.
In addition to detailing the interior of the Municipal Building, we also designed solutions for Bærum Municipality’s temporary premises in the Town Hall and at Eyvind Lyches vei 10.
I was the responsible project manager for the complete relocation process of 1,350 employees, procurement with evaluation, extensive mapping and assessment of the Municipality’s existing furniture for reuse and redesign, as well as quality assurance of inventory deliveries from start through to move-in.
How did you approach the process? Did you have any goals at the beginning, and how did you solve things along the way?
From the very start, Bærum Municipality had clear goals that there should be a high degree of furniture reuse in the new Municipal Building (Kommunegården). As a result of this objective, we ended up with:
The volume of furniture available across the Municipality’s six locations made the planning and relocation process particularly complex. Early on, we realized we needed a surveying tool that could hold all the key information about furniture type, quantity, condition, reusability, location, etc. A total of 6,400 existing furniture items were surveyed, registered, and QR-tagged in Loopfront.
"Using Loopfront’s digital platform made it possible for us to carry out the project in a sustainable and efficient way, with 100% control from start to finish, and was crucial to a successful relocation process."
– Christina Lage Dahl – Project Manager, SIGNAL
(Image: Bærum Municipality, Signal, ISS A/S)
You have achieved 80% reuse in the project; can you say a bit about the results and what you have done with the data after the relocation?
With Loopfront, it has been possible to estimate reduced CO2 emissions and furniture budget, as well as reduced use of packaging. SIGNAL uses the project in Bærum Municipality as an example for our clients when we recommend that they reuse and repurpose in their own projects, because we are also proud of how we have achieved a holistic and seemingly new expression with a high proportion of used furniture. We have also used this project as a reference when we talk about what is possible if you have high ambitions for reuse and choose to prioritise resources for reuse in professional forums.
Do you have any tips on how to succeed with reuse in relocation projects?
It is important to obtain a good overview early in the project of what is available for reuse, so that you have enough time to plan good procurement of second-hand furniture and minimise the purchase of new furniture.
It is important to have skilled partners, consultants and designers with relevant expertise in assessing suitability, seeing the possibilities and putting together a concept from many different pieces of furniture in various styles and colours, while minimising the need for redesign.
It was crucial for the Kommunegården project that the client had clear goals and priorities for sustainability and reuse where possible, as well as function over aesthetics.
Is your organisation planning to relocate? We would be happy to help you reach your circularity goals!