Apparently, when it comes to snowflakes, we’ve been misinformed.

Adriana, a young and energetic participant in We Care, fills me in, “There’s a factory up in the clouds, stamping the snow, and that’s what’s shaping the snowflakes. They could be the same or different—it depends.”

It’s undetermined whether this explanation had anything to do with the holiday card she was decorating at the time—covered in silver ink-stamped snowflakes.

Here in Holland, Michigan, Adriana was one of 225 kids and 50 employee volunteers stamping, gluing, and coloring during the Herman Miller-sponsored arts and crafts extravaganza known as We Care.

Steve Hightower, a Herman Miller employee and avid volunteer of six years, said his favorite part is “seeing the kids smiling and running around. They get a chance to do crafts that maybe they wouldn’t otherwise. It’s really cool.”

This year marks the 16th anniversary of We Care, our partnership with Boys and Girls Clubs of America and local design firms. We Care reaches 30 communities across North America and this holiday, more than 6,000 youngsters came to craft.

Drawing 680 galleries, 2,000 artists, and more than 50,000 collectors from around the globe, Art Basel Miami Beach is one of the world’s premier art shows. If you’re an art lover, it’s the place to see works from cutting-edge newcomers alongside pieces by renowned artists.

For the second year in a row, we were the show’s exclusive furniture sponsor. Across the venue—in lounges, restaurants, and VIP areas—people took a break from browsing art and enjoyed furniture from the Herman Miller Collection.

Also on display at Art Basel was a sneak peek of Then X Ten, a traveling exhibition celebrating Herman Miller’s rich history of poster design.

Art Basel was December 6-8, 2012. Couldn’t make it? Check us out on Facebook for more photos from the event.

Every year we collect information like miles saved, environmental emissions, and charitable activities into our Better World Report. We do this to let you know what we’re doing to reach our goals in four areas—community service, inclusiveness and diversity, health and well-being, and environmental advocacy. Are we perfect and do we always succeed? Of course not, but we believe every trip around the equator saved is a step in the right direction.

To learn how we turned 16 into 15,992, check out the new Better World Report.

It’s a 50-cent word, but “dematerialization” just might save us millions, to say nothing of our planet. The basic idea is getting down to only what is essential, or, as Charles Eames said in the 1940s, “the best for the most for the least.”

Doing more with less certainly predates Mr. Eames, but dematerialization has had a resurgence lately, largely as a response to conspicuous consumption (McMansion anyone?), a throwaway culture (it’s cheaper to buy a new one than fix the old one), and planned obsolescence (as Annie Leonard says in The Story of Stuff, only 1% of things are still in use 6 months after purchase).

It’s no wonder those concerned about sustainability see promise in dematerialization, an idea whose logic train goes from using less material to eliminating material altogether while still delivering the same level of functionality. An example of this promise they often point to is music delivery. From LPs to cassettes to CDs to digital downloads, the progression eliminated lots of plastic waste and the resources and energy needed to make it. (The sustainability costs of using the Internet to download the music will be left to another discussion.)

We find examples of dematerialization closer to home. One is the Setu chair designed by Studio 7.5 of Berlin, Germany. The chair’s two spines provide tilt-like kinematics in one continuous seat and back, eliminating the need for a tilt mechanism.

Reducing material and actually improving a product’s performance is the theme of another chair, SAYL designed by Yves Béhar. In SAYL’s case, seat base, arm structure, and tilt mechanism undercarriage are fused into one, strong part that reduces material content. The chair’s The Y-Tower structure is sculpted and hollowed out, achieving strength with less material.

Eliminating an object altogether is the logical conclusion of dematerialization. Short of developing a way for people to levitate, we think making every molecule in a chair work harder is an acceptable alternative.

For University of Washington student Erik Alskog, “It’s the students who make campus green.” Busy thinking up new ways to make their school earth friendly, Alskog and his fellow classmates are redefining what it means to be green. They challenge us to imagine bike-powered monorails connecting campus with the surrounding areas where students live; new forms of wind farming that mimic swaying blades grass; and products designed to last a hundred years.

Alskog was one of three winners in our third annual Student Video Contest. We posed the question, “What makes your campus green?,” students everywhere responded, and viewers selected the winners.

Alskog is not alone in thinking of the future; students today see themselves as green innovators working to make their campuses more environmental.

To see some of the other great videos we received, click here.

Meridian filing and storage units are one of the first products to use counterweights made from the new cement mix containing recycled powdercoat.

Designing for a Better World means being mindful of the environmental impact of our products. In the past this led us to discontinue rosewood until a sustainable alternative could be found. Today it means eliminating one of our largest landfill items: the overspray from our powdercoating process.

Working in collaboration with a local West Michigan supplier, VanderWall Brothers Concrete, Herman Miller has found a way to recycle leftover powdercoat into a cement mix. The mix is used to make the counterweights that sit in the bottom of filing and storage units, preventing them from tipping over when the drawers are extended.

Testing has even shown the recycled powdercoat improves the binding qualities of the cement, producing a stronger block.It may even have applications in construction products.

Solving an industry-wide problem, we decided to share the new process with all of our competitors, ensuring that maximum environmental impact.

The cover of Bill Birchard's book Merchant of Vitrue.

What role does design play in sustaining the earth? “The biggest role,” says writer, journalist, and Merchant of Virtue author Bill Birchard. An environmental advocate and proponent of business sustainability, Birchard shared with us his thoughts on caring for the earth, the importance of measuring environmental performance, and of course, design.

There’s always a lot of press coverage around Earth Day. It’s hard to know whether we’re doing better or worse at caring for the earth. What’s your view?

I think it’s useful to distinguish between consumers and companies. As a consumer, it’s sometimes hard to see whether we’re doing much better. On the corporate side, we’re doing a lot better. And that’s significant, because corporations have a huge amount of leverage compared to consumers. A recent Sloan/MIT study showed that 68% of companies had increased their commitment to sustainability in the last year, compared to just 25% doing so two years ago. Companies still have a long way to go, but the trend toward greater responsibility by the most powerful institutions on earth—corporations—appears irreversible.

We’re a company that uses design to solve problems. What role do you think design can play in sustaining the earth?

Design governs how products are sourced, manufactured, used, and disposed of. So what role does design play? The biggest role. In the 1990s, a number of “green” leaders inside Herman Miller and other companies recognized this, and now many companies are designing products for cradle-to-cradle environmental responsibility, a notion championed by Bill McDonough. The most visible example at Herman Miller is the design and redesign of the Aeron chair. (I sit in one.) It’s nice to know it’s made of 53% recycled material (like soda bottles) and in turn is 94% recyclable. Only with smart, forward-thinking design can manufacturing companies move toward mimicking the cycles of nature, where all waste and worn-out goods from manufacturing eventually cycle back into new goods.

What examples of design and design thinking from around the world have you seen that have sustainability at their core?

Examples with sustainability at their core are hard to find because almost everything man creates these days requires fossil fuel to manufacture or operate. Of course, concepts like cradle-to-cradle design, biomimickry, and dematerialization are leading us in the right direction. In the meantime, it’s important to be reminded of how solutions guided by sustainability can yield breakthroughs that in hindsight are so simple and obvious. In the developing world, one of my favorite examples is the soda-bottle light. If you haven’t seen it, take a look at this Reuters video, which features an effort in the Philippines. Designers everywhere can be inspired by its ingenuity. It pays immediate dividends in improving people’s lives and saving fossil fuel.

If you could do one thing to care for the earth, what would it be? How about the one thing you’d want everyone to do?

I would keep on urging companies to measure their environmental performance. My first book was called Counting What Counts. It argued that the way for companies to improve their performance was to measure and report all the things that mattered. Numbers drive results. There’s no getting around it. So pressing leaders to set goals and measure environmental performance—something everyone can do in their working life—is a powerful way to make progress in caring for the earth. As management thinker Charles Handy says, “Counting makes it visible, and counting makes it count.”

What insights, discoveries, or lessons learned from your research and writing can all of us apply to advocating for the environment?

I titled one of the chapters in Merchants of Virtue “Magic Zero.” I chose the title because, as I was writing, I realized that company managers who set goals to reach zero—zero landfill, zero brown energy, zero products designed unsustainably—create a sort of magic. After all their people get over complaining about the impossibility of actually achieving the goal, they try things they would never have dreamed of if they were just planning to improve something a bit at a time. So my belief is that we should all advocate in our organizations for giant leaps—to achieve zero in one helpful way or another to reduce our environmental footprints. Given a little time to “redesign” our approach, we achieve breakthroughs—like the elimination of once-ubiquitous solvent emissions in manufacturing like toluene and xylene. Zero lights up people’s imaginations.

Enter Gem, a new polyester upholstery fabric that is antimony-free, making it a good choice for the earth. Polyester is one of the world’s most popular polymers; unfortunately making it is harmful to the environment. Designing a better polyester meant replacing antimony, a heavy metal used as a catalyst, with titanium, a much more earth-friendly choice.

Gem is durable, inexpensive, and easy to take care of—and it’s part of Herman Miller’s quest for a Better World.

The lords are leaping and the maids are milking, but who’s been making all these stockings?

For the fifth year, holiday stockings hung along the corridors of the Herman Miller Design Yard and multiplied into the hundreds. And they’re not cookie-cutter stockings either—each are one-of-a-kind and handmade out of our textile leftovers. In fact, every once in a while, passersby try buying one for themselves to hang over their fireplace.

However, these stockings were not for sale, but rather made for a greater cause. In the season of giving, Herman Miller employees volunteered their lunch hours for sewing and decorating a total of 477 stockings. All those carefully crafted stockings were distributed to these handpicked charities: Holland Rescue Mission, Urban Family Ministries, Love INC, and St. Jude’s Ranch for Children. These organizations work directly with the families who took the stockings filled with goodies home for the holidays.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about design’s central role in our business lives. There’s been nearly as much buzz about how design, or at least design thinking, can solve big social problems. Cynthia E. Smith certainly thinks so. She highlights examples of this in her exhibition “Design for the Other 90%: Cities.” Projects in which the world’s poor have been “rescued by design” range from the favelas of Sao Paulo to the Kiberia slums in Nairobi to the canals of Bangkok. But as Michael Kimmelman points out in his review of the exhibition, these projects succeeded because the designers consulted the people living in poverty for their help in solving the problem. Human-centered design, as many of us have known for years, is the real key to designing lasting solutions to problems that people really care about.

“If we think about architecture as simply beautiful objects,” says Michael Murphy, founding partner of Mass Design Group, “then we fail to talk about the process which creates those objects. It’s labor—the construction of craft—that produces beauty.”

Consider Butaro Hospital in Rwanda, an example of MASS Design’s belief in first-rate healthcare facilities for the third world and investing in the local economy as a means of breaking the cycle of poverty. For Butaro’s wall construction, local Rwandans became the masons: hand-chipping volcanic rock and beautifully shaping each piece so they fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Built 100 percent by the community, Butaro’s walls are as much symbolic as they are functional. They testify to a community that labored together, using newly learned skills, to build a hospital for themselves.

Patients benefit from their labors, too, in the design of the hospital. Placing beds in the center, making each bed a window seat creates a positive patient experience. An innovative airflow design minimizes the spread of airborne diseases.

Butaro Hospital is functional, innovative, and beautiful. But, to the community, its best design was the process by which it was created.

Herman Miller is excited about working together with MASS. Learn more here.

People around the world have truly become neighbors in a global hometown, and we at Herman Miller support our neighbors wherever they are–locally, globally, and everywhere in between.

It is in this spirit that Herman Miller Healthcare is honored to partner with MASS Design Group. Started by students from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, MASS has, in a very short time, become a leading organization for pushing the boundaries of design and architecture for the purpose of improving the healthcare and lives of people in the world’s poorest communities.

In places like Rwanda, Haiti and Liberia, MASS applies a human-centered approach to design to create innovative, inexpensive, and effective healthcare facilities. The impact of their work has been recognized at home in the U.S, and MASS is now working with healthcare leaders such as Cincinnati Children’s Hospital on their Cerebral Palsy Clinic.

This partnership is long-term, and we are excited about working with MASS to build a better world around you.

Follow MASS Design on Facebook and Twitter.

This guy wasn’t pondering this question back in 1930. (It wasn’t long after that we were.) Today, more people like him are not only thinking about being green, they’re making their living doing green work.

McGraw-Hill Construction says 35 percent of architects, engineers, and contractors report having green jobs today. The study defined “green jobs” as those that involve over 50 percent of one’s work being done on green projects or designing and installing green systems.

That 35 percent represents 661,000 jobs, or about one-third of the industry workforce. And there’s better news. The share of green workers is expected to increase to 45 percent of all design and construction jobs by 2014.

We’re delighted to see these trends. As merchants of virtue, we are committed to being green, even when it isn’t convenient, because in the end we know it’s as good for business as it is for the earth.

Our 1953 promise to “be a good steward of the environment” put Herman Miller on a path toward helping Yellowstone Park. As the first national park, Yellowstone is often referred to as “America’s best idea.” A national treasure, it faces the complex challenge of balancing environmental preservation with public enjoyment.

Addressing this, Yellowstone Park and the Yellowstone Park Foundation recently gathered fellow leaders in environmental advocacy—including Toyota, the University of Michigan, and National Park Service—to beginning thinking how to balance its objectives.

We were honored to join the discussion and help facilitate a session that began mapping a sustainable future in which Yellowstone remains as beautiful as it is today.

What do a high-speed train and a nanotechnology textile finish have in common? They were inspired by Mother Nature’s 3.8 billion years of research and development. Increasingly, designers and engineers are looking to the systems, process, and models evolved by nature to fuel innovative problem-solving.

The aerodynamic shape of the kingfisher’s beak, for example, lets it catch fish with barely a splash. The same shape allows a Japanese bullet train to move at 200 mph with just a whisper, and 15 percent less energy.

For us, nature inspired Greenshield, a sustainable nanotechnology textile finish that naturally repels oil and water. By mimicking the “micro-roughness” of the lotus leaf—undetectable to the human touch—liquids roll off the surface, never having an opportunity to penetrate. The result is a Herman Miller fabric that is naturally antimicrobial, stain repellent, and easy to clean.

We aim to improve the human experience wherever people work, heal, learn, and live. Problem-solving design and “being a good steward” are just two ways we do this. We also set goals for our business and our people, including: environmental advocacy, inclusiveness and diversity, health and well-being, and community service.

Every year we put together our Better World Report so that you can see how well we’re doing at reaching our goals. Here are a couple of highlights:

11,500 volunteer hours spent in the communities where we work around the globe.

437,225 miles saved by employees carpooling and biking to work.

100% green energy usage in our facilities worldwide.

To learn more, see the web version or download the full report.

In 1953, Herman Miller founder D.J. De Pree promised, “We will be good stewards of the environment.” That promise drives the design and innovation of our products today.

Setu’s Kinematic Spine, for example, has a not-so-secret secret—polypropylene, the same recyclable material used to make everything from toothbrushes to garbage cans. Making the plastic structure flexible and strong involved creative engineering. The result is a lightweight mechanism that lets Setu mimic your every move.

Visit us at Greenbuild 2011 in Toronto, October 4-6, 2011.

“We will be a good steward of the environment,” was the promise made by Herman Miller founder, D.J. De Pree, in 1953. Living up to this sometimes means investing time and money into solving a problem that doesn’t occur until a product is at the end of its life-cycle.

Celle, for example, was put together with taking it apart in mind. With five minutes—and a screwdriver—Celle can be disassembled into recyclable components. Following our own Design for the Environment protocols made that work. And it made an impression: Celle has earned MBDC Cradle-to-Cradle Gold certification.

Visit us at the Greenbuild 2011 in Toronto, October 4-6.

We design products with consideration for their environmental impact. Sometimes it’s straightforward—usually it’s not. But that doesn’t matter because we believe it’s the right thing to do. Merchants of Virtue, a new book by independent journalist and writer Bill Birchard, tells the stories of our struggles to be good stewards of the environment.

Why Herman Miller? Bill Birchard in his own words:

“The people of Herman Miller showed something even the activists could not: Sustainability in a large, established business—a company making the ‘stuff’ we all buy—is sustainable. …In good times and bad, the people at Herman Miller continue to ask new questions, test new ideas, and rethink and restructure the nature of the work to make their business more sustainable.”

In a world of corporate-funded literature, we take it as a compliment that someone of Birchard’s reputation would take it upon himself to tell our story.

Merchants of Virtue by Bill Birchard is out now.

Design has long been a tool for developing new products that drive consumption and boost the bottom line–products that will eventually become trash. But recently, companies have begun to recognize design as a tool for solving issues associated with the end of a product’s lifecycle.

Design can make a product’s end-life more sustainable in several ways. The first is to develop products that last longer. Durable products are replaced less frequently and can be refurbished–giving them a second life and postponing their trip to the landfill.

Another approach is to design for disassembly. Products that are easy to take apart are easier to sort into smaller pieces, which encourages a larger percentage of the product to be recycled.

We have developed a set of Design for the Environment protocols that try to accomplish both of these goals. The degree of our success varies, but the lifecycle of our products, from beginning to end, is always on our minds.

Check out Taking It Back, a great article about companies working toward better sustainable goals.

The guys as at Ore. E. Refineries raise some great points, namely that there are a lot of chairs in the world. They ask us to rethink the meaning of sustainable design and suggest repairing old chairs. So why did they create a how-not-to? Wouldn’t a call to action be more powerful that a call to non-action? Engage designer to use their talents to creating “new” chairs from old chairs, or perhaps a how-to on repairing old chairs would have been useful. Positive challenges will lead to positive outcomes.

Do you agree?

Charles Eames had been explicit with Herman Miller executives when the lounge chair that would bear his name was being developed: it had to be made of rosewood, a wood treasured for its rich color and personality. Unfortunately in the decades since the chair’s introduction, the massive Brazilian rosewood trees that supplied the veneer were disappearing, and slash-and-burn methods of clearing tropical rainforest were endangering an entire ecosystem. This created a dilemma: Do we ruin a wonder of modern design or a wonder of nature?

Nature won, and in 1991 we ceased using rosewood. It was a decision supported by Ray Eames, Charles’ design partner.

In 2006, the Eames lounge and ottoman recaptured its original appearance with the introduction of Santos Palisander, a sustainable species of Bolivian rosewood harvested from well-managed, certified forests. Santos Palisander closely resembles the aesthetic of the original Brazilian rosewood that Charles had insisted was integral to his design.

Almost 60 years ago, Herman Miller founder D.J. De Pree defined a key company value when he stated, “We will be a good steward of the environment.” Since then we have worked hard and taken great pride in making sure that nature wins. The discontinuation of rosewood and the subsequent introduction of Santos Palisander is just one example. To learn more about our journey to become an environmental leader, please check out Merchants of Virtue, coming soon.

That is the beauty of Pechakucha: 20 seconds per slide and only 20 slides is just 400 seconds to tell your story. Grab the audience’s attention early, move quickly, and be concise, and you will be successful.

Brian Malarkey, author of the “We spend 19% of our money on cars” quote, spent 400 seconds (6:40) making the case for a better approach to energy consumption. He feels that the future will require us to explore and support alternative transportation options, not just rely on cars.

Brian was among eight presenters who answered the question, “What does it mean to be a sustainable city?” as part of a themed Pechakucha (PK) event held in Herman Miller’s Houston showroom. From the built environment, to conserving the natural environment, to sustainability as a public-policy issue, everyone delivered a unique perspective on the theme

Sustainability is an important topic for Houston as it challenges itself to become a truly sustainable city. And for Herman Miller as well, as we move closer to our goal of zero waste by 2020.

Checkout Pechakucha’s website to find a PK near you, and for information on starting your own event.

Photo: Ian Johnston

Steve Frykholm poses with his students in Aba, Nigeria, 1966.

“Do what I did and join the Peace Corps,” was Steve Frykholm’s answer when asked what advice he had for students. “It was a great experience,” he continued, “I have been working for 41 years. What was two years out of my life? I learned a lot. It helped my self-esteem. It helped my confidence. It also taught me screen-printing. If I hadn’t been in the Peace Corps would I have done [the picnic] posters?”

Wow, Steve Frykholm, whose work is highly regarded and on display in MOMA, may have never learned the skill that made him famous if he had not lived in Africa. What is two years? For Steve, it focused his interest and started his career.

I had a similar experience, having spent a long time living in Japan, and would agree with Steve. The experience I gained was invaluable and really helped me to better understand who I am–I am a much better person for that.

Steve’s advice was great. Really, what is two years in the whole scheme of things? I wish more students would challenge themselves to experience something different. Sometimes you have to leave everything you know to discover who you are.

“The donated furniture was in really good shape and we were thrilled to receive it!” says Cindy Kuhn, a Director at Habitat.

And it’s an entirely turnkey operation: All you have to do is contact Herman Miller and that starts the ball rolling. Green Standards, Herman Miller’s partner in the program, handles all the arrangements, from finding local recipients who need furniture to picking it up and delivering it to them.

“What’s really great for the donating companies is to see the impact right in their own communities,” says Kevin Smit, Account Executive at Green Standards. “It’s not just writing a check to a charity, it’s helping out your nephew’s school or the place where you volunteer.”

As Craig Mack, Manager of Deere & Company’s General Office Facilities, points out, “We had tried to donate unused furniture previously on our own, but it wasn’t working out. So when Jeannette Smith of Pigott (a local Herman Miller dealership) told us about rePurpose, we decided to go with it.”

He says the whole process was “very seamless. Green Standards lined up the recipients and we had the peace of mind knowing the furniture was going to someone who could really use it.”

Which is so much better than the alternative. Our research shows that when organizations replace furniture three-quarters of it if disposed of and one-quarter is reused. Of the three-quarters that is disposed, 67 percent ends up in landfills.

So if you’re involved in getting new furniture for a company, please consider using rePurpose to donate the furniture that’s going away. You can contact repurpose@hermanmiller.com for more information.

Another great—and practical—addition to this year’s conference came from AT&T. The company provided a charging station powered by wind and solar energy. This was a relief to many tweeters and bloggers who had the power they needed to make their posts accessible to everyone.

New this year, Herman Miller offered attendees a chance to nominate a 501c3 non-profit organization of their choice for the chance to win $25,000 worth of Herman Miller furniture. And today we’re pleased to announce Urban Prep Academies as the recipient.

Based in Chicago, Urban Prep operates a network of all-boys public schools including the country’s first charter high school for boys. Urban Prep’s mission is to provide a high-quality and comprehensive college-preparatory educational experience to young men that results in graduates succeeding in college.

Urban Prep Academies was selected at random from the entries submitted by conference delegates at our onsite mobile station. The new Herman Miller products will help Urban Prep Academies do its good works even better—and make a better world for all of us.

After collecting the books, we delivered two Herman Miller Meridian red bookcases to the volunteer organization School on Wheels. The bookcases arrived full of children’s books ranging from If You Give a Mouse a Cookie to Harry Potter.

The books were barely out of the boxes before the kids started chattering in anticipation. They chose their favorite book, flipped through pages, shared stories, and pointed out the funny and bizarre pictures. Then silence filled the room as the stories engulfed them. The eagerness in these young faces was enough to evoke a single word – awesome!

School on Wheels’ volunteers tutor homeless children, give them school supplies and backpacks, help them file necessary paperwork, and even offer each child a dedicated phone number so the child can meet the school board’s requirements for enrollment. The organization is determined to end the cycle of poverty by “shrinking the gap in their education and by providing them with the highest level of education possible.”

Herman Miller collected almost 8,700 books in its national book drive. If you would like to make a book donation, check out Better World Books for more information.

Images courtesy of Juan Luis Garcia

Designed by Yves Béhar, the SAYL chair is unique for its Eco-Dematerialised design, which means we used fewer materials in inventive ways to make the chair attainable for more people. Fewer parts and less material ultimately mean less cost and a smaller carbon footprint needed to make SAYL chairs. And, we produce them on three continents to cut the distance between factory and buyer.

TreeHugger points out that it’s a great time for green and we agree.

Congratulations to all the Best of Green winners and thank you to everyone who voted for SAYL!

The audience of CEOs, CFOs and VPs from major blue chip companies, such as Coca Cola, Cisco, Nokia, Nestlé, Walmart, all heard there was just one company so far ahead of the game there was no need to ask for other nominations. And if they want to understand how to make a real difference and get that message to stakeholders, then they would do well to take notice of what Herman Miller is doing.

At that moment, I understood how far Herman Miller has come and how much people respect us for doing the right thing.