Counting the benefits of furniture recycling

Last week, Canada’s ‘Daily Commercial News’ wrote about the need for asset recycling to be a core practice for public organizations. This followed the publication of a report by RCCAO about asset use in Ontario titled: ‘Building new infrastructure on the foundation of existing public assets‘.

Whether you are talking about furniture assets in hotel rooms, dorm rooms, military barracks or government administration buildings, there is a strong and undeniable argument for asset recycling.

“Asset recycling is a concept that basically speaks to leveraging the existing investments that taxpayers have in public assets. It tries to find a way to make them perform better and drive more value from that past investment,” explains Michael Fenn.

And that’s exactly what it is. Asset recycling is not just about protecting existing assets; it’s about leveraging existing assets. It offers numerous benefits, although all too often its supporters claim a single one. So we thought we would share the multiple benefits we see day-in, day-out from asset management best practices:

It’s sustainable, and adds to ‘green’ credentials. In the four decades that we’ve been advising and delivering furniture asset management best practices, the need for government organizations and commercial businesses to demonstrate sustainability and to share their green credentials has certainly grown. Asset management is an undeniably sustainable practice: it slashes carbon emissions, reduces landfill waste and decreases consumption of new resources.

It drives stakeholder value. As existing assets are leveraged through recycling, re-use or remanufacturing, more value is delivered to stakeholders. This includes shareholders, taxpayers, citizens, travelers or students.

Budgets are saved. Government organizations and higher education are under budget pressure. Hotels are constantly looking for ways to reduce spend while maintaining standards. Across the board businesses and institutions need to protect the bottom line. We repeatedly see up to eighty percent of budgets saved through furniture asset management best practices.

Budgets can be re-allocated. This applies to each industry that we work with, including government, education and hospitality. The stress of prioritizing tight budgets is a headache for any general, facility or resources manager. Being able to save budget and spend it in areas that deliver greater returns, competitive differentiators and benefits to citizens, users or customers, is a sound business decision.

Want to find out more about the returns your organization could reap from furniture asset management? Then please contact us today: [email protected].