Architects and designers play key roles in school construction and renovation projects. Without their influence, considerations essential to a project’s success can easily be overlooked.

For instance, questions regarding a school’s indoor air quality (IAQ) might not be raised or adequately discussed without the input of an architect or a designer. The same applies to questions about a construction project’s overall sustainability. While such questions are of undoubted significance, it’s even more important to find answers that can be integrated into project solutions.

To make the best, most sustainable choices for new or renovated schools, an evaluation of alternative building materials and construction methods provides invaluable information. If this evaluation is to be complete, it will include school furniture, since chairs, desks and tables take up more classroom space than any other product.

What follows is an overview of the impact of school furniture on the indoor air quality and overall sustainability of new or renovated schools.

indoor air quality

With hundreds of GREENGUARD-certified furniture models and the classroom furniture industry’s only Take-Back program, Virco provides environmentally friendly products and services to schools, colleges and universities.

The World Health Organization and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have identified polluted indoor air as a significant public health concern that’s associated with asthma, allergies, developmental and reproductive disorders, and cancer. In fact, since 2001, the EPA has hosted an Indoor Air Quality Tools for Schools National Symposium. An announcement for the 2006 symposium stated, “Every school year, asthma accounts for an estimated 14 million missed school days by students and staff.”

Additionally, one of the EPA’s Northern California Environmental Heroes for the Year 2000 was the San Francisco School District’s Indoor Air Quality Implementation Committee. Beginning in 1998, the committee had taken numerous steps to reduce high rates of asthma in The City’s Bayview/Hunters Point schools and community.

Clearly, IAQ has been a high-priority issue in the educational community for at least the better part of a decade. Because furniture takes up such a significant percentage of classroom space, the importance of an objective, third-party indoor air quality standard for evaluating classroom furniture cannot be underestimated. In this context, the non-profit GREENGUARD Environmental Institute (GEI) – recognized as America’s leading independent IAQ standards developer and certification organization – issued a prescriptive IAQ standard for children and schools in September 2005. Virco’s classroom furniture certified according to this standard; moreover, Virco’s hundreds of GREENGUARD-certified items include all models in their new, ergonomically contoured ZUMA and ZUMAfrd classroom furniture collections.

sustainability: furniture recycling

An often-overlooked issue in school renovation projects involves the fate of old furniture that’s being replaced. Typically, this furniture is simply thrown away, a decidedly unsustainable solution that results in tons of recyclable furniture components being unproductively buried in local landfills.



Along with environmental considerations, landfilling costs can provide a powerful motive to recycle. That’s because many schools are challenged to dispose of hundreds, if not thousands, of out-of-service furniture items when a large-scale refurbishment takes place. While it’s not possible to give a precise figure that’s applicable to all schools – since landfill charges, transportation fees and labor rates vary from place to place – it’s instructive to note that a mid-Atlantic high school recently received a quote of approximately $50,000 for its old furniture to be hauled away as waste.

Despite these disincentives to throw away old furniture, for decades the only practical option available to most schools was landfilling. Although the steel in their furniture was recyclable, hardly anyone wanted to reprocess the seat, backrest and worksurface components from chairs, desks and tables.

Things changed in 2006 when Virco launched a Take-Back program to help qualifying schools, colleges and universities recycle out-of-service classroom furniture components. To qualify, educational institutions are asked to make four commitments: (1) to environmental education; (2) to identify the types and quantities of materials proposed for Take-Back; (3) to prepare these materials for shipment; (4) to be responsible for shipping costs related to the transport of Take-Back materials.

In light of IAQ and recycling considerations, classroom furniture is crucial to the sustainability of new and renovated schools. With hundreds of GREENGUARD-certified furniture models and the industry’s only Take-Back program, Virco gives, architects, designers and educators sustainable choices to optimize their school construction projects.

For more information on Virco, visit www.virco.com.