How ESG Shapes Workplaces and Creates Opportunities

Since the summer of 2020, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals have been a hot topic across the industry. But how exactly does ESG apply to the office furniture industry — and how can ESG goals be put into practice in the workplace?

ESG focuses on non-financial factors — Environmental, Social, and Governance — and represents a philosophy of sustainable development. For companies to achieve high-quality growth, they need to put ESG principles into practice. Yihang practices ESG through concrete action: on one hand, it is committed to improving employee productivity and job satisfaction; on the other, it places great emphasis on employee health and well-being.

Today's workplaces take health, well-being, sustainability, and social responsibility as their fundamental drivers. Driven by these elements, the work environment becomes more comfortable, further raising the productivity of the people using the space.

Health: "formaldehyde-free offices" become an industry focus

Under the influence of the pandemic, we spend longer hours indoors and are more vulnerable to the dangers of excessive formaldehyde. Health, environmental protection, and sustainability have become what high-quality corporate development requires, the workplace has entered a new round of upgrading, and "formaldehyde-free offices" have become an industry focus.

Leveraging the synergies of its industry chain, Yihang has joined forces with companies such as Wanhua Chemical to champion "healthy work, formaldehyde-free offices," calling on the office furniture supply chain to create healthy, comfortable workspaces so that working people can enjoy healthy offices.

Built around the ten core dimensions of WELL — covering air, water, nourishment, movement, light, sound, community, and more — the approach is to "bring nature into the office." For air monitoring, indoor space data is broken down into indoor/outdoor temperature, humidity, TVOC levels and trends, CO2 levels, formaldehyde levels, and more, then visualized, monitored, alerted on, and resolved — thereby creating a space environment as natural as the outdoors. In room acoustics, quiet booths and similar solutions optimize the sound environment, reduce noise interference, and strengthen focus at work.

Sustainability: recyclable materials drive an eco-upgrade

Over a project's life cycle, repeatedly replacing materials ultimately accumulates as much carbon as — or more than — the structural materials themselves. To improve on this, designers need to consider the major impact of furniture and interior finishes, along with how they'll be handled at end of life. Which materials does a product use? How much space does it take up in transit? Once its use ends, can it be easily disassembled and recycled, or adapted and reused? In addition, Environmental Product Declarations — reports that compile a product's environmental information — are a practical tool for creating smart design.

On the R&D side, Yihang has established a European R&D center in Berlin, Germany, building partnerships with outstanding global design firms and collaborating with Zhejiang University, Nanjing Forestry University, and other institutions on research into user behavior, color, materials, and technology. New materials and technologies are woven into product development, reducing waste at the design level by choosing low-energy, low-emission, recyclable materials, and ensuring products are easy to disassemble, repair, or reuse — achieving an eco-upgrade.

Space: one-stop total space solutions

Achieving healthy offices takes more than a focus on products — it must start from the overall office space. Guided by its corporate mission of "everything for healthy offices," Yihang is committed to building a healthy-office ecosystem encompassing space planning, office furniture, interior furnishing and decoration, smart offices, and healthcare and education environments. Through employee research, it uncovers and solves customers' core pain points, delivering total office space solutions so employees can work healthier and more efficiently.

People's definition of health has evolved beyond eating well and staying physically fit into an expectation that who they are will be recognized. And we know that happy people are healthier — and healthier people are good for business. The better a person feels, the more productive, engaged, and unlikely to leave they are; looked at the other way, when employee productivity rises, companies benefit too. Going forward, Yihang will take "formaldehyde-free offices" as an opportunity to work with companies up and down the supply chain to drive green, low-carbon development of the office furniture industry. The industry is heading for a brand-new "green" transformation, and in the future, more users will enjoy healthy, eco-friendly, comfortable, and smart office space solutions.