Bernhardt achieves environmental status
Heath E. Combs -- Furniture Today, April 7, 2008
Lenoir, N.C. — Bernhardt Furniture has successfully completed registration of all five of its U.S. facilities in the American Home Furnishings Alliance's Enhancing Furniture's Environmental Culture, or EFEC, program.
Bernhardt also is the first AHFA member to have its corporate office achieve EFEC registration.
Bernhardt enrolled its domestic manufacturing facilities in the program last year. EFEC is an environmental management program launched by AHFA in 1999.
The EFEC program requires companies to analyze and understand the environmental impacts of their processes, raw materials and finished products on a facility-by-facility basis. It focuses on steps including reducing energy use, controlling water and waste disposal costs, and improving operational performance and efficiency.
Stanley and La-Z-Boy Upholstery also have U.S. plants that are EFEC-registered.
At Bernhardt, special teams in all five locations worked through the EFEC checklist in nine months, an AHFA press release said.
At corporate headquarters the checklist included replacing all high wattage fluorescent lighting with more energy-efficient, low wattage bulbs, a move that cost $20,000 but reduced electricity use by more than 189,000 kilowatt hours. The company estimates it will recoup the cost of the project with within 18 months.
Bernhardt also reduced the landfill waste it generates by 26.2% and increased its recycling from 58.4 tons in 2006 to more than 228 tons in 2007. In addition, the company sent letters to 331 of its vendors to encouraging environmental stewardship.
