Steelcase Inc.

Type	Public (NYSE: SCS)
Industry	Furniture
Founded	March 16, 1912
Headquarters	Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
Products	Leap Chair Think Chair
Website	www.Steelcase.com

Steelcase (NYSE: SCS) is an international office furniture company founded on March 16, 1912 in Grand Rapids, Michigan — as The Metal Office Furniture Company. The company at the time specialized in file cabinets and safes. Today, the company sells products related to interior architecture, furniture and technology. In 1914 The Metal Office Furniture Company received its first patent for a steel waste basket. The steel waste basket was called the Victor fireproof waste basket, an innovative product for its time. In 1954 The Metal Office Furniture Company changed its name to Steelcase.

Steelcase had owned a majority stake in the design firm IDEO^[1] since the 1980s and began divesting its shares in 2007 through a five-year management buy-back program.^[2]

History[link]

The company was founded in 1912 as The Metal Office Furniture Company, specializing at first in file cabinets and safes, and changed its name to Steelcase in 1954. Today, its portfolio spans the three core elements of an office environment: architecture, furniture and technology products. Steelcase has been a publicly-held company since 1998, with a large portion of its stock held by members of three founding families, including the family of Peter M. Wege

In 1989, Steelcase opened its pyramid-shaped, seven-story, 575,000 square foot (other sources site the building as 663,671-sq.-ft)^[3] Corporate Development Center, after a five year gestation. The company touted the facility, located in Gaines Township, as the most comprehensive research center for a national office-furniture manufacturer. The building featured testing laboratories, project team areas and a sound-proof room for measuring the noise created by furniture. The building was designed by the architectural firm The WBDC Group of Grand Rapids at a construction cost of $111 million and featured 333,000 sq. ft. of office space, 242,000 sq. ft. of research and development space, a full-service cafeteria, data center, two-story photo studio, exercise and locker rooms, card-access security, on-site video surveillance and 1,014 parking spaces.^[3] In 2009, the company announced it would consolidate operations at the main headquarters location and that it would vacate and sell the Corporate Development Center.^[4]

In 1996, Steelcase was found at fault in a patent infringement suit brought against them by Haworth, Inc., another furniture company. Steelcase was ordered to pay $211.5 million in damages and interest.^[5]

In 2001, Steelcase’s wood furniture factory became the world’s first manufacturing plant to receive LEED Certification for Environmental Excellence by the U.S. Green Building Council. Steelcase has the largest portfolio of products to receive McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry’s Cradle-to-Cradle certification for sustainable products.

In 2006 Steelcase received an MBDC Cradle to Cradle Certification for an entire powered workstation at the annual Green-build International Conference & Expo presented by the U.S. Green Building Council. The certification marked a first in the contract furniture industry^[6]

In March 2008 Steelcase announced a long-term financial commitment to a U.S. wind farm, including supporting the purchase of all the green power produced by the farm for at least the first five years of its operation. This was the first time a corporation has made an up-front commitment to purchase all of the renewable energy credits (RECs) from a U.S. wind farm in the financing stage. Experts believe that Steelcase's commitment to the wind farm will help pioneer new ways to reduce the United States' reliance on fossil fuels and shows how companies can leverage their environmental commitments to effect a massive change.^[7][8]

June 2010 marked the announcement of Steelcase using bio-based packaging material called EcoCradle™ developed by Evocative, a natural composite materials company. The material is made from agricultural byproducts such as cotton seed hulls and mushroom roots. Because the material is grown, it uses one-tenth of the energy to produce compared to traditional packaging. Steelcase's first product shipped using EcoCradle was Currency®, a ready-to-assemble laminate case good product.^[9][10]

References[link]

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