Product Environmental Impact

As global green building certification standards have evolved and our product lines have expanded, the data collection and reporting systems required to efficiently and accurately provide environmental impact data to our clients have become increasingly sophisticated. Many of our products are configurable and offer dozens of size, material and finish options—each combination yielding a different set of data.

We’ve thus created a database-driven system that links to our engineering and resource management information and tracks each material, component, process and vendor independently. The environmental data is then “compiled” for the exact finished product.

Detailed Product Environmental Data Sheets are available for nearly all of our products and are located on the product pages of this site for viewing or download. If you don't see the environmental data sheet for the product you're interested in, or if you have additional questions, please contact our sustainability team at 800.451.0410 or green@forms-surfaces.com.
 

High-quality materials are the foundation of our designs and play a large part in our products' overall environmental impact. See an overview of our materials, including a brief description and information about material maintenance requirements, durability, and eventual disposal.
 

We monitor every process that takes place at our facilities and personally visit our vendors to see our outsourced processes in action. Processes at our facility are optimized for waste minimization, emissions reduction, and material use. Processes at vendor facilities are controlled to the extent possible by our vendor selection process, certification, and raw material provision. See a brief description of our processes.
 

Much of our company’s environmental impact comes from other organizations manufacturing materials on our behalf. To control these impacts to the best of our ability, we manage procurement of raw material through our vendor selection and certification processes. In accordance with our environmental policy, we prefer recycled and recyclable materials, responsibly harvested wood, and low-VOC cleaners, paints and adhesives.

We are continuously searching the world for suppliers and partners with unique materials or technologies that can help advance our supply base and expand the pallet for our design group. With every new potential supplier, Forms+Surfaces (F+S) sends a company representative to personally perform an audit of that vendor’s environmental policies and worker safety.

Although F+S may identify a supplier to be a good potential partner, the supplier may not always have a good understanding of its environmental impact or the significance of worker safety. F+S has taken steps with many of its suppliers to improve in those areas including:

• Purchasing and providing uniforms, personal protective equipment, and safer equipment for workers
• Teaching suppliers about environmental impact and management
• Working with suppliers to increase energy efficiency by eliminating waste and providing financial assistance to purchase new, more energy efficient equipment
• Purchasing clean scrap for our suppliers and working with them to increase the recycled content in all materials
• Performing site audits on an annual or semi-annual basis for key overseas suppliers, meeting with ownership to listen and possibly act upon concerns, evaluate worker safety, and continue education on environmental management and awareness
• Work with the suppliers on packaging to eliminate waste

If F+S identifies a vendor that is not improving environmental awareness, or is violating F+S policies or expectations, the vendor is replaced as soon as possible.