The sustainability trend coming to an office near you
It lends a whole new meaning to the concept of hot desking
3 min
Everyone is talking about environmental sustainability these days. From growing our own food to opting for less plastic packaging, there is an increasing desire to embrace practices that have as little impact on the environment as possible.
One of the last sectors to seriously consider the way their behaviours are contributing to waste is the office.
Prior to COVID, most offices were refurbished every five to seven years, in line with leasing arrangements. However, quality office furniture can come with warranties of 10 or more years. What to do with used – but still useful – furniture at the end of a lease has been a challenge.
The result is 35,000 tons of furniture from Australian offices ends up in landfill every year.
Designer furniture retailer Living Edge is calling on businesses to end the waste with a shift from one of purchase to leasing. This would result in the furniture supplier taking responsibility for the product over a lifetime.
Sustainability strategist at Living Edge, Guy Walsh, said while it has been a slow burn convincing businesses, interest has gained pace in a post-COVID, hybrid-working environment.
“We have been talking to the market about the life cycle model since 2016,” Mr Walsh said. “But in the last 12 months, we have seen an increase in interest, how it works and the sustainability benefits.”
He puts this down in part to the number of businesses committing to sustainability targets, sometimes without a plan for how to achieve them.
“The big organisations are all making their sustainability pledges and they are working out how to deliver them later,” he said. “You can’t just make claims anymore – you have to provide evidence. We can pull a report out and demonstrate the outcomes, which can be useful for external and internal communications.”
With many workers reluctant to return to the office full time, Mr Walsh said the need for a floor full of office furniture has also changed. A leasing model offers flexibility.
“One of the things COVID created was uncertainty, which requires more agility (from businesses),” he said. “We have promoted that concept around the life cycle model, which has a lot more agility than a traditional model.
“If the world changes, as it has in recent years, you need a strategy for what to do with those assets. One top of that, through a sustainability lens, change can often result in waste.”
Living Edge is the main distributor for Herman Miller, which has built its reputation on the high quality, ergonomic task chairs favoured by big business.
Mr Walsh said the chairs, such as the Aeron, come with a 12-year warranty. Under a leasing arrangement, businesses could return their chairs to Living Edge where they will be triaged according to useability under their LivingOn scheme.
“The top outcome is it gets refurbished and reused by the original purchaser,” he said. “The next option is we refurbish it and we resell it as a ‘second life’ chair. The next option is to recycle the parts. The last, and least attractive option is that it goes to landfill.”
It’s good news for commercial landlords, as well as tenants but it does require a different approach from the standard office fit out. One concern is how to ensure furniture is identifiable by the supplier as theirs. The other is a structural change in how budgets are created and managed.
“One of the big barriers traditionally is that furniture falls under capital expenditure but a lease model would put it under operational expenditure,” he said. “You are moving the cost from a one-off figure to ongoing. It is purely the legacy of how furniture has been bought for office spaces.”
While the model is still in its infancy both here and in Europe, Mr Walsh said there are already signs that it is the way of the future.
“We have heard examples of it happening in Europe but to my knowledge, we haven’t seen that ‘lift off’ moment,” he said.
Pure Amazon has begun journeys deep into Peru’s Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve, combining contemporary design, Indigenous craftsmanship and intimate wildlife encounters in one of the richest ecosystems on Earth.
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Pure Amazon has begun journeys deep into Peru’s Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve, combining contemporary design, Indigenous craftsmanship and intimate wildlife encounters in one of the richest ecosystems on Earth.
3 minPure Amazon, an A&K Sanctuary, has officially launched its voyages into the 21,000-square-kilometre Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve.
Designed for just 22 guests, the new vessel positions itself at the high end of wilderness travel, offering quiet, immersive, and attentive experiences with a one-to-one staff-to-guest ratio. The focus is on proximity to wildlife and landscape, without the crowds that have made parts of the Amazon feel like tourism has arrived before the welcome mat.
Where Architecture Meets the River
The design direction comes from Milan-based architect Adriana Granato, who has reimagined the boat’s interiors as part gallery, part observatory. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame rainforest scenes that shift hour to hour, and every space holds commissioned artworks by Peruvian artists.
The dining room’s centrepiece, Manto de Escamas de Paiche by Silvana Pestana, uses bronze and clay formations that mirror the scale patterns of the Amazon’s giant fish. Pestana’s works throughout the vessel reference environmental fragility, especially the scars left by illegal gold mining.
In each suite, hand-painted kené textiles by Shipibo-Konibo master artist Deysi Ramírez depict sacred geometry in natural dyes. Cushions by the BENEAI Collective feature 20 unique embroidered compositions, supporting Indigenous women artists and keeping traditional techniques alive in a meaningful, non-performative way.
Wildlife Without the Tame Script
Days on board are structured around early and late river expeditions led by naturalist guides. Guests may encounter pink river dolphins cutting through morning mist, three-toed sloths moving like they’re part of the slow cinema movement, and black caimans appearing at night like something from your childhood nightmares.
The prehistoric hoatzin appears along riverbanks, giant river otters hunt in packs, and scarlet macaws behave like the sky belongs to them. The arapaima — the same fish inspiring Pestana’s artwork — occasionally surfaces like an apparition.
A Regional Culinary Lens
The culinary program is led by a team from Iquitos with deep knowledge of Amazonian produce.
Nightly five-course tasting menus lean into local ingredients rather than performing them. Expect dishes like caramelised plantain with river prawns, hearts of palm with passionfruit, and Peruvian chocolate paired with fruits that would be unpronounceable if you encountered them in a supermarket aisle.
A pisco-led bar menu incorporates regional botanicals, including coca leaf and dragon’s blood resin.
A Model of Conservation-First Tourism
Pure Amazon’s conservation approach goes beyond the familiar “offset and walk away” playbook. Through A&K Philanthropy, the vessel’s operations support Indigenous community-led economic initiatives, including sustainable fibre harvesting and honey production in partnership with Amanatari.
Guests also visit FORMABIAP, a bilingual teacher training program supporting cultural and language preservation across several Indigenous communities. Notably, the program enables young women to continue their education while remaining with their families — a rarity in remote regions.
Low-intensity lighting, heat pump technology, and automated systems reduce disturbance to the reserve’s nocturnal wildlife.
The Experience Itself
Itineraries span three, four, or seven nights. Mornings often begin with quiet exploration along mirrorlike tributaries; afternoons allow for spa treatments or time on the open-air deck. Evenings shift into long dinners and soft-lit river watching as the rainforest begins its nightly soundtrack.
Granato describes the vessel as “a mysterious presence on the water,” its light calibrated to resemble fire glow rather than a foreign object imposing itself on the dark.
It is, in other words, slow travel done with precision.
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