We are proud to have achieved this feat through positive environmental actions and a small amount of carbon offsetting. We always design, build and distribute our products and services with the environment in mind.

Our Environmental Management System (EMS) more than satisfies all elements of ISO 14000:2004. This has helped us to better understand and measure our impact on the environment. Today we continually measure and monitor our activities. We are pioneers of environmental management in our field and have successfully delivered the following improvements:

1) We have an active environmental sub-group with representation from each department. They meet on a regular basis and report directly to the board on the following issues: energy consumption, office waste, excess fabric and leather, local exhaust ventilation, heating, vehicle fuel usage and supplier waste management.

2) At each stage of our design and manufacturing process we consider the environment. We actively work with our clients, partners and suppliers to ensure that our products and production processes remain efficient and have minimal negative effect on the environment.

3) Our suppliers understand our strong environmental stance and our commitment to using innovative and sustainable materials to further enhance our environmental credentials. We prefer to work with like-minded suppliers who seek to minimise adverse environmental effects.

4) We are pioneering reusable packaging for many of our products and where this is not possible we ensure that packaging is compacted and recycled in the most efficient way.

5) We consider the whole life impact of our products and believe that we have a responsibility to ensure that such chairs do not go to landfill. We have introduced our 'end of life' management program which aims to put these chairs to better use to support our charitable activities. Any chairs that are not fit for purpose are broken down to component form and recycled components arriving at Boss Design.

6) We are also in the process of offsetting the carbon emission of individual chairs. This involves measuring the processes related to obtaining raw materials, manufacturing the component parts and all peripheral activities involved prior to.

7) Through a schedule of planned energy management steps we have significantly reduced the amount of energy we consume throughout our business. Simply turning down heating thermostats by one degree has reduced our gas usage by 8%.

8) We monitor our use of internal and external transportation to eliminate unnecessary travel and ensure efficient vehicle utilisation. We have a policy of using low emissions vehicles and effectively schedule deliveries. We have started a program of driver fuel efficiency courses and we monitor the use of company owned vehicles on a monthly basis. This has encouraged reduced business travel and facilitated the introduction of video conferencing.

9) To significantly reduce waste to landfill to a minimum in just over a year has been a phenomenal achievement for our company. This has been achieved through a carefully designed programme of waste management activities implemented over a dedicated period of time.

Equally remarkable is the progress that we have made to reduce our carbon emissions. A series of proactive measures mean that we are well on target to reduce our emissions by over one hundred and fifty tonnes by the end of 2010.

We continue to improve our operational performance and we are working with our supply chain to further reduce pollution, waste and the use of non-renewable resources in the whole life production of our products

It would be very easy for us to become complacent about our achievements. However, we see this work as merely the start of even more positive environmental initiatives from Boss Design.

The future will see us build on our energy management, minimal waste and low carbon emissions credentials. We will also be addressing greener transportation throughout the business and further enhancing our supplier environmental relationships.