THINK, Like Our Office Chair

We have indeed decided to get a rather clever office chair: one that thinks about the environment as well as our body posture. Plus it is a beautiful chair. Its name is THINK, by Steelcase, specialists in office furniture. The company commits to applying Life Cycle Assessments (LCA), Materials Chemistry and Recycle/Reuse strategies to the design of all their products. Their environmental transparency is what made us trust in Steelcase’s products and convinced us that they are truly eco-friendly, and, although a little pricey in the beginning (460€ + IVA), well-priced if you look at it long-term. We are not planning on ever getting another office chair.

So why the THINK chair?

It’s locally produced in Sarrebourg, France, which reduces the impact of the transportation (petrol, CO2, packaging…). In fact, the chairs are made close to the client in Europe, Asia or Northern America, and only put into production after it’s been bought. This brings with it that you have to wait up to 3 weeks for your chair, but on the other hand, only as many chairs as needed are being produced.

THINK has been designed considering the environmental impact of each stage of the product’s life cycle: from what materials are being used, to the production, the transportation involved, its use as well as what happens to it at the end of its life.

Regarding the first stage for example, Steelcase managed to reduce the weight of the chair to 15 kg. 40% of the materials of THINK are recycled materials, it’s completely PVC-, lead-, chrome- and mercury-free and 99% of the materials are recyclable. This is made possible because the chair has been designed for easy disassembly. Apparently, you can take it apart in 5 minutes using ordinary house tools. We haven’t tried that yet, but this again results in other advantaged such as the possibility to exchange, replace or repair the different part of the chair easily, increasing its lifespan drastically.

All this obtained Steelcase quite a few environmental certifications, amongst which the Cradle to Cradle certification ‘gold’

So now you want to know if it is comfortable? Oh yes it is! Its seat and back flexors make it move with the body for extra comfort, and the seat, back, and armrest are fully adjustable.

To see Steelcase’s whole collection of chairs and other office furniture, please visit their web site.

Wooden Board Upon the Wall, Who is the Greenest Green of All?

After we wrote about our FSC-certified MDF shelf ‘Never Empty’, we had quite a few readers contacting us about more eco-friendly alternatives. To close of some storage space and to build more shelves in the studio, we went out hunting again for the greenest engineered wood options, the disadvantage of which is mainly the high amount of toxic resins they contain.

OSB (Oriented Strand Board), as suggested by Terra Foundation, ended up being the best material for us to build some sliding doors in order to close of a storage area on top of the bathroom (see photo). We like the visual effect of the unevenly layered flakes of wood and appreciate its strength. An environmental advantage of this board is that any kind of tree and even the smallest branches of a tree, can be shredded and used. The amount of resin in OSB is very low (less than 5%) compared to other engineered woods (up to 85% in MDF). However, we recommend you check that they don’t contain formaldehyde. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to get this kind of information from your regular wood dealer. In fact, we found it almost impossible to have our order cut to size and delivered due to the small amount we needed. In the end we obtained everything at Servei Estaciò in Barcelona, who do free deliveries in the city centre and are willing to cut any given amount. The price per m2 is 26,90€ for 10mm thick boards. For more information and the technical specifications of OSB, click here.


A cheaper option is chipboard at 13,80€ / m2, which we used for the shelves in the studio (see photo). This is one of the weakest fibreboards (hence cheaper) and, unlike OSB, is not recommended for outdoors use or in moist areas like kitchens. Due to the larger pieces of wood shavings used to make chipboard, it’s not as attractive-looking as other fibreboards. You can however paint it afterwards. Most of the wood particles used to make chipboard are recycled (75% in Canada and the US) and the amount of resin used during the manufacturing is also low (between 4 and 10%). At Servei Estaciò they even assured us their chipboard didn’t contain any resin- but we don’t quite believe them…

When you are looking for boards, make sure you use formaldehyde-free chipboard and preferably made of 100% recycled or recovered wood fibres.

Jaga Low-H20 Radiators to Heat Our Home

Just on time for the colder months we had central heating installed. To take advantage of our condensing boiler and to save as much as possible when turning on the heat, we went for the Low-H2O radiators by the Belgian company Jaga, called Energy Savers.

Low-H2O stands for low water, meaning that the radiators contain less water than traditional ones. They function on average with only 2 instead of 20 litres. If you run your central heating system like us on a condensing gas boiler, we don’t recommend traditional radiators (as you would not be able to save much energy despite the efficient boiler) but endorse Low-H20 ones or radiant floor heating. The latter was not an option for us due to the weight that would have had to be added to the floor and could have caused structural problems to the over 100 year old building.

The Low-H20 system brings with it the advantage of warm radiators immediately. A newly developed heat exchanger made from aluminium and copper (instead of heavy steel plates that take longer to warm up) lets the heat immediately into the room. Another advantage is the cost savings. A scientific study by Jaga has shown that Low-H20 radiators consume at least 12% less. This is because less water needs to be heated up and the radiators react sooner to the heat; both when starting and stopping the heat. Jaga also claims that ‘homes with Low-H20 radiators annually emit as much as 1000 kg less CO2, and Low-H20 is therefore much less polluting for the environment”. For those of you with kids, there’s no need to worry about burned fingers anymore; the Low-H20 heaters release the heat evenly and therefore don’t need to be super hot. This also results in a greater comfort for everyone at home.

Something that surprised us was the way the radiators arrived at our house. They came flat-packed with one of the radiators measuring 10 x 60 x 120cm in a 10 x 10 x 120cm box for example. A bit worried at first, we realised that the assembly was very straight forward and quick. From an eco point of view we love flat-pack: it reduces the transport and packaging impact drastically. We would also like to mention that Jaga produces in Spain, which is perfect for us in terms of keeping the transportation impact as low as possible.


To give you an idea about pricing, the wall-mounted model 'Strada' measuring 10 x 60 (height) x 100cm (wide) costs 170€. It is suitable for rooms of around 12 m2. In total, our 5 radiators with their installation pieces cost us 1500€ IVA included, and their full installation 1360€. For those of you who have a bit more money to spend than us, check out the Knockonwood series with gorgeous FSC-certified wooden panels as decoration for the radiators. More about those on TreeHugger.

Last but not least, it’s not just the type of heating system that saves you money and is kinder towards the environment, but also the way it is used. Insulating your home (more on double glazing here) or simply putting on another sweater is all part of wise heating. “Each degree Celsius less will save about 10% on your energy use”, says TreeHugger. For more tips, check out How to Green Your Heating.

Our Thoughts for the New Year

Thank you to all our readers for sticking with us through 2007. It was definitely an exciting year for us as we finally got to move into the eco-flat lab, as Epi called it. Although a bit slow in posting articles at times, we were able to share some more green achievements with you.

We installed recycled plastic slate in the bathroom, appeared on TV with Silenci?, put down a gorgeous cork floor, reduced our water consumption and installed double glazing, applied real eco paint, hunted down some furniture, started urban gardening and built FSC shelves. All this while eco design became more and more mainstream, big businesses decided to go green(er) and people’s climate change awareness grew drastically not least because of An Inconvenient Truth, Live Earth and Al Gore and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change winning the Nobel Price.

We hope that in 2008 this awareness grows in order to eliminate green-washing and even plastic bags, and make us all more responsible consumers, and that more and more people achieve the win-win-win (for people, planet, profits) scenario by making their business sustainable. On a more local scale, the R3project will look into the most eco-friendly heating system, water filtering systems, cradle to cradle office chairs, analyse our electricity, gas and water bills, find out where our recycling goes and hopefully, throw a huge Open House Party for everyone who has been involved with the project.

A Happy New Year to all of You,

Petz & Sergio