As the pioneer and leader of office ergonomics, Humanscale makes products that allow workstations to adapt to the user, not the other way around.
Founded in 1983 by CEO Bob King with a focus on high-performance tools that support a healthy, more active way of working, Humanscale is now the global ergonomics leader with a reputation for designing intuitive products which improve the comfort and health of office workers.
The company, headquartered in New York, made its first mark as a workplace ergonomics pioneer in the 1990s with the introduction of revolutionary articulating keyboard systems. Humanscale solidified its status as a true market leader with the introduction of the Freedom chair in 1999, created by renowned ergonomics designer Niels Diffrient. The innovative executive task chair broke new ground by combining unprecedented functionality with minimal manual controls. Humanscale followed suit with a series of Diffrient seating designs including Liberty, Diffrient World, and Smart chairs.
Humanscale now has locations in more than 28 countries and has even gained attention from Hollywood, with products gracing the sets of hit television shows and films including The Newsroom, New Girl, 24, The Bourne Ultimatum, Mission: Impossible III and Mr. & Mrs. Smith.
Humanscale’s latest products continue the company’s legacy as a leader in innovative, award-winning, user-focused design and include the groundbreaking Element Disc LED task light, the Ballo stool, and the QuickStand height adjustable workstation.
1114 Avenue of the Americas, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10036
Provides services nationwide
Sustainability Initiatives:
As a global company, our approach focuses not only on minimizing our negative impacts but working to produce significant positive contributions. Our goal is to make an overall Net Positive impact on the Earth.
For us, becoming Net Positive means incorporating manufacturing into our environmental and social solutions. It means taking a close look at what we make and how we make it. It means considering each and every resource required to manufacture our products. And it means finding ways to go beyond reducing our consumption—to give back, replenish, and continue making a positive environmental and social impact on the world.
We’ve been pushing for transparency for quite a while, and systematically publish Declare labels & HPDs for all our products. In 2018, we had published more materials labels than the rest of the furniture industry combined (even though we make up about 3-5% of the industry). Our major project here was setting up our business to include materials transparency systematically.
After going through thousands of components to know and disclose the ingredients, the next step is to remove Red List ingredients. We’ve focused on one per year. 2019 we eliminated all Cr6 from all products. 2020 we eliminated all PFC/PFAS chemistry from all products. By the end of this year we’ll eliminate all halogenated flame retardants from all products.
We are about to announce a major milestone of having 25 of our products (about 60% of the products we sell) Living Product Challenge certified. This should go to press on June 8th, so I’m not sure if I can share this beforehand. Let me check in with marketing.
Alternately, we could share the story of what it takes to eliminate red list ingredients. For example, we found Cr6 on the spindle of the caster on our chairs. We negotiated with the supplier to get them to change their process to Cr3. Then we had months of cycle testing to confirm the product still had the same functionality. It was probably over a year’s worth of work. But it helps change the industry because that supplier now offers their standard product in Cr3 instead of Cr6.
Sector:
Arts + Culture, Bars + Restaurants, Civic + Public, Corporate + Office, Education, Energy + Sustainability, Financial, Healthcare, Historic Renovation, Hospitality, Housing, Manufacturing + Industrial, Mixed-Use, Retail, Senior Living, Sports + Entertainment, Transportation + Parking, Wellness, Worship, Other