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As with most industries, healthcare leaders constantly strive to make their businesses as sustainable as possible. That typically leads to changes, like adding more energy-efficient heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), energy-efficient lighting systems, or setting up a recycling or waste management program. However, sustainability is about much more than that. It’s about making smarter, longer-lasting choices throughout the built environment. One area that is often overlooked is furniture.
Every time your hospital, clinic, or doctor’s office renovates a space, relocates, or expands, you probably purchase new furniture. Months or years later, it becomes obsolete, and you’re essentially stuck with it. Your options range from storing it indefinitely, which is cumbersome and expensive, to tossing it in a landfill, which means generating more waste and increasing your carbon output.
Healthcare organizations that partner with CORT and take advantage of our Furniture-as-a-Service (FaaS) program not only reduce their environmental impact. They also minimize waste output while keeping up with operational demands, meeting environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. Best of all, they do it without sacrificing design, safety, or comfort.
When considering sustainability, your furniture strategy may not even be on your radar, but think about this: Every time your company creates a short-term buildout, like pop-up clinics, pilot spaces, or temporary departments, you probably purchase new furniture. Once you no longer need it, you either store it or send it to a dumpster.
Throwing a chair away that you used for six months or a year is a significant contribution to landfill waste. Wooden furniture can take 13 years to decompose while a plastic chair from a short pilot program can take up to 1,000 years.
Even when you choose to store those pieces after short-term use, buying all new furniture when you’ll only need it for a brief period of time leads to supply chain emissions from manufacturing and shipping, which contribute to your carbon footprint.
Unfortunately, too many institutional settings see furniture as disposable, although it can reverse any progress you make toward becoming more sustainable. A shift toward lifecycle thinking is critical: Where your furniture comes from is just as important as where it goes next. That’s why many healthcare organizations are opting for circular solutions that prioritize reuse and rental.
Reuse and rental models — like CORT’s FaaS program — are gaining traction. That’s because they:
“Designing a space that’s environmentally friendly really includes considerations for energy efficiency, water conservation, waste reduction, and using sustainable products like eco-friendly furniture made from recycled and renewable resources,” points out Shannon of Healthcare Workplace Talk. “So this is where I think considering rental comes into play because CORT is a sustainable solution.”
Basically, the relationship between furniture and sustainability isn’t just about the material a chair is made from. It’s about creating a circular furnishing system that conserves resources and reduces waste at every stage.
When you partner with CORT, you rent furniture and fixtures rather than making a huge investment, and you keep them for as long or as little as you need them. We can help you meet your needs without increasing your carbon footprint or waste output.
Embracing furniture reuse and rental isn’t just about being a little more green or sustainable. You will also find that it often connects directly to institutional frameworks.
According to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), 91% of health executives say ESG will be more critical to their organization’s business strategy over the next few years.
Reuse and rental furniture models also support Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certifications and help with sustainability reporting. Best of all, they leave you with quantifiable cost savings that you can reinvest into your clinical care or community wellness programs.
Overall, furniture reuse is a strategic alignment with your broad environmental commitments.
Partnering with CORT makes a difference. Our vast inventory of healthcare-friendly furniture and fixtures, along with quick delivery and set-up, allows us to help you furnish your space responsibly and sustainably without sacrificing speed, safety, quality, or comfort.
When you work with us, you gain access to durable, high-quality furnishings without falling prey to the waste that comes with ownership. Plus, lifecycle data, reuse tracking, and inventory transparency support sustainability reporting.
We have pieces that work for clinical, administrative, and transitional spaces, and each one is easily reconfigured or redeployed as needed. The result is a partner who can help you furnish responsibly with speed, flexibility, and sustainability in mind, freeing up your time so you can focus on the bigger issues, like serving your patients.
As healthcare systems work to balance patient care with environmental responsibility, furniture reuse offers an immediate, actionable opportunity. With the right partners and mindset, furnishing can become part of the solution.
Your team deserves a workspace that supports every phase of your journey in healthcare. Explore how CORT can help you create adaptable, sustainable environments that drive collaboration and care delivery.
