The many lives of our furniture
The furniture used at Hesburger restaurants is designed withsustainability in mind. Durable materials and proven designs are selected for the furniture and its wear parts are made so they can be easily replaced. Most of the furniture at Hesburger restaurants both in Finland and all the eight other countries where Hesburger does business is manufactured by a Finnish furniture and lighting expert, Scale Up Oy Ltd.
The furniture is designed with the principles of circular economy in mind. The fastest wear parts, such as tabletops, bench backrest upholstery and stool seat cushions, are replaceable. The metal parts, such as the cast iron table legs of the tables, are mostly made of recycled metal. The legs have a powder paint finish, which is a more environmentally friendly option than any conventional solvent-based paint. In total, more than 27,000 kg of recycled metal has already been used for metal table legs at Hesburger.
While being shipped, the furniture or parts thereof are packaged in recyclable packaging materials, such as corrugated cardboard, paper or recyclable plastics. The furniture travels along with full truck loads of goods to avoid unnecessary emissions from the logistics.
A durable and renewable table
Starting in 2021, Hesburger introduces new tables made of certified solid oak with cellulose lacquer surface treatment. The tables can be repaired and surface-treated several times, giving them many lives. Cast iron table legs are very durable and 100% recyclable.
The circular designed table in a nutshell
- The design aims for a long life cycle
- Wear parts are easily replaceable
- A more ecological surface treatment
- More than 70% of the metal used for table leg production is recycled
In 2021, the restaurants introduced new sofa benches for comfortable seating, also made of solid oak, and with built in possibilities to extend lifetime by changing wear part, re finishing surface treatment etc. Most of the lighting fixtures are LED lamps that allow more than 65% better energy efficiency compared with a conventional lamp. The plastic polyvinyl chloride (PVC) of the lighting fixtures has been replaced with environmentally friendly acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and in many of the lamp shades, the proportion of recyclable aluminum exceeds 50%. Furthermore, the stool seats that are subjected to heavy wear can be replaced. This spare part was developed in cooperation with Scale Up Oy Ltd and it was introduced as early as 2017.
Our long-range development work with Scale Up is progressing in steps towards more sustainable restaurant furniture. For restaurant furniture and lighting fixtures to withstand years of heavy wear, they must not only be made of quality materials, but cleaning and maintenance has to be easy and spare or replacement parts have to be readily available. One of our goals is to further increase the proportion of recycled materials in the manufacture of our restaurant furniture and lighting fixtures.