Corporate Real Estate’s Guide to the Circular Workplace


Who’s Who in The Circular Workplace (2024)

In the year since Green Standards published our first Circular Workplace report, the members of this coalition have spoken on panels, run workshops, conducted interviews, advised policy makers, and done the hard work to ensure the stuff in our offices stays in use and out of landfill. And the one thing we keep coming back to is this: Collaboration.

There is no such thing as a circular economy of one. Everyone in the modern workplace needs to know that circularity is a proven way to save money, resources, and carbon emissions. The workplace strategist needs insight into how the furniture manufacturer facilitates reuse and repair; the facilities manager requires information on how the remanufacturer can integrate into their operations; and the corporate real estate professional must identify an architect who considers end-of-use planning from the outset.


To enable a true circular workplace, it will take all these individuals working more collaboratively with each other. No one company, team or individual can do this alone.

The State of The Circular Workplace (2023)

Major corporations, innovative startups, ambitious non-profits, and industry associations are making progress toward the idea of the zero-waste office, and they share their best practices in this new report by Green Standards. Turning our linear “take-make-waste” economy into a regenerative loop that designs out waste and keeps resources in use is a huge undertaking. This report is a snapshot of where we are now, a summary of what we need to do, and a call to action for workplaces around the world.

This report features insights from Steelcase, Starbucks, General Motors, Haworth, CBRE, Teknion, Davies Office, M Moser, Cuningham, BIFMA, the USGBC, and many more organizations. Together, they show how building owners and occupiers, manufacturers and re-manufacturers, service providers, and the architecture and design community can work together to put circular ideas into practice. The result engages employees, saves money, cuts emissions, and turns the engines of the economy into workshops for the circular economy.

Green Standards, the global sustainable decommissioning company, is building a circular coalition to close the loop on workplace waste.

If you’d like to participate in our next report and formally join the Circular Workplace coalition, fill out the below form and we’ll be in touch!

How are you already refusing, rethinking, reducing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing, remanufacturing, repurposing, recycling, and recovering? We want to celebrate your wins!
What’s on the agenda at your organization? We encourage the use of this forum to promote your work to the wider circularity community!