The not-for profit organisation takes in unwanted furniture that would otherwise go to landfill, enabling a number of its corporate members – including HSBC, Procter & Gamble, BP and Unilever – to fulfil their social and environmental responsibilities.
Furniture of a sufficient quality is then re-sold at heavily discounted prices to individuals, community groups, charities, the voluntary sector and start-up businesses. Some poorer-quality items are broken up for recycling. Starting out in Woolwich, Green-Works expanded to a new 30,000 ft warehouse in Silvertown, East London, and can now handle around 300-500 tonnes per month of furniture.
 GWS director James de Bathe (right) signs franchise agreement with Colin Crooks of Green-Works |
However, Green-Works has found that their remarkable success in signing up corporate members to donate furniture has produced difficulties in matching it up with the demand side. The opening up of its new Portsmouth operation, Green Works South, has intended to redress the balance with a wider market.
“Portsmouth is a good area for such a scheme,” explained GWS Director James de Bathe. “It is an area of regeneration, where a number of new businesses are starting up and need furniture.”
Viable
Mr de Bathe gave up his career in computer software sales to start up the GWS operation, funding it out of his own pocket. However, it is a financially viable venture, he told letsrecycle.com, since the cost of goods is negligible and there is a good re-sale value. Even so, furniture worth 1000 goes for around 75, so buyers also do well out of the scheme.
GWS has also received valuable support from the Portsmouth and South East Hampshire Partnership, a consortium of local councils, private sector companies, and social organisations involved in successful funding bids for local regeneration. The partnership provided GWS with the site for their warehouse.
Benefits
Plans are now afoot to expand the Green-Works ideals even further, Mr Bathe said, since more and more companies were seeing the benefits of membership.
“B & Q recently closed down some of their stores in Portsmouth and we helped them deal with their furniture,” he said. “Businesses like it because we're a one-stop shop, they pay an at-cost fee for us to take the furniture and a membership fee, and we solve a problem for them. But Portsmouth is the very tip of the iceberg – there are plans to expand into the rest of Hampshire, East and West Sussex and Surrey.”
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