by Shane Henson — November 16, 2012—The Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturer’s Association (BIFMA) announced that its ANSI/BIFMA e3-2012 Furniture Sustainability Standard now includes an additional point for furniture products that meet a new, lower formaldehyde emissions limit, giving facilities managers even more confidence that products that meet the standard will be safe for employees’ health.
“This new revision further strengthens the health basis of e3 by incorporating the most stringent formaldehyde emissions limit established by the State of California Department of Public Health,” said Randy Carter, chair of the BIFMA Furniture Emissions Sub-Committee.
According to BIFMA, the e3 standard represents a structured methodology to holistically evaluate the environmental and social attributes of furniture products and constitutes the technical criteria of the level product certification program. Modeled after the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system, the e3 standard includes six prerequisites and numerous optional credit criteria, says BIFMA.
As a product is determined to conform to the various optional criteria, points are accumulated toward an ultimate score and corresponding conformance tier. A minimum of 32 points (of the 91 total now available) must be achieved in order to reach the first conformance threshold, adds BIFMA.
