Green-Works Goes West

Scheme for recycling office furniture comes to this area

Every year a staggering quarter of a million tonnes of office furniture is chucked into landfill but ALL of it could be re-distributed or recycled. A non-profit organisation, Green-Works was set up to help to solve this problem on a national basis, creating valuable employment and training opportunities in the process. As at July 2004, nearly 1,500 non-profit organisations have made a cumulative saving of almost £1 million by acquiring their office furniture.

To complement a network of six outlets across the UK, Green-Works is opening premises for just six months from mid September to the end of February. Processing 500 tonnes of office furniture per month, this new outlet near Hangar Lane will have available some of the most popular items.

The award-winning initiative bridges the gap between large corporates and government bodies who have vast quantities of redundant office furniture and the community. On the one hand, the commercial world is given a viable alternative to landfill and on the other hand literally thousands of schools, charities, community groups and start-up businesses are given the facility to get hold of quality office furniture at very low cost.

With the chief executive selected as “London Ambassador for the Environment" by Mayor Ken Livingstone at the London Day Awards, Colin Crooks is fulfilling his dream of protecting the environment on a massive scale to the benefit of the community.

Green-Works offers a unique one-stop collection service to support large scale office disposals on a membership basis. The list of members reads like a roll-call of the country’s largest, blue-chip organisations as well as some major governmental bodies including Marks & Spencer, Lloyds of London, Unilever, Barclays, and The Royal Bank of Scotland, The DTI, The British Library, The FCO and The London Fire Service. As part of the Green-Works family, these organisations are able to contribute to their environmental and social agendas.

Green-Works creates valuable employment and training opportunities in deprived areas across the UK to boost local economies. Directly and indirectly we employ about 40 people, with 37% of employees from ethic minority backgrounds and 46% classified as disadvantaged or previously unemployed

Green-Works have come a long way since establishing a single pilot warehouse in South East London just two years ago. As well as the new West London outlet the initiative has two warehouses in the capital, is about to open an outlet in West London and has a network of four franchises serving the North East, the South East, the Midlands and the North West, with plans for further expansion.

To help even further, any office furniture which cannot be re-used is broken down into component parts and donated to art and drama projects for both children and adults. Not only does this save money on precious resources and enables people to create all sorts of innovative sculptures or stage props, but it gets everybody actively doing something about regeneration.

September 21, 2004