Wood is extremely common in furniture, and this means the furniture industry can affect deforestation to a great extent. To drive the development of sustainable office furniture, Savo only uses wood that does not contribute to deforestation.
Every second, the number of trees felled would cover a football pitch, and every year 10 billion trees are destroyed without replanting. Logging and deforestation are a major global environmental problem, where felled forests account for around 12–15 percent of the world’s total climate emissions. Compare this to aviation, which accounts for 3–5 percent of climate emissions. Globescan’s FSC Consumer Insights 2021 Global Report shows that 84 percent of consumers expect companies to make sure their wood and paper products do not contribute to deforestation. The report also shows that 86 percent of consumers try to avoid products that harm biodiversity, and seven out of ten like to choose products that do not contribute to climate change.
Forests constitute one of our most important defences in the global climate crisis thanks to their ability to capture and store carbon. Trees are often referred to the planet’s lungs as forests are carbon sinks that capture and bind atmospheric carbon dioxide. Indeed, forests absorb more greenhouse gases than they release, and they also provide renewable raw materials that are able to replace parts made from fossil raw materials. Because carbon dioxide is stored in wood, there is a climate benefit from using wood in products instead of burning it, as carbon dioxide is released during combustion.
Wood is thus an excellent material for furniture, not only because it’s renewable but also for its durable and aesthetic qualities. Increased demand for sustainably produced timber can protect our forests from deforestation. FSC® certification is an effective tool for preventing deforestation, conserving biodiversity and improving carbon storage in our forests.
FSC stands for the Forest Stewardship Council®, which is an independent international membership organisation that works to ensure the world’s forests are managed more responsibly. The goal is to develop forestry methods that take the environment and social conditions into account in the best way. Fifteen billion of the world’s 3,000 billion trees are felled every year, and only five billion are replanted. The best way to make sure forests are replanted is to choose FSC certified wood. In addition to replanting, FSC certified wood requires forests to be harvested responsibly, e.g. by not cutting down all trees, conserving dead trees and trees alongside watercourses. FSC also protects threatened species and bolsters the rights of forestry workers, indigenous populations and people who live close to forests.
Based on the UN’s 17 global goals for sustainable development, Savo has identified goal 15, which deals with ecosystems and biodiversity, as one of the areas where we can make a difference. The goal seeks to protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss. At Savo, we use FSC certified wood and other controlled materials in more than 80 percent of our products, and our sights are firmly set on 100 percent. All of the wood Savo buys is from FSC certified, responsibly harvested forests and other controlled sources.
Savo and all of our suppliers in the chain right back to the forest company must be traceability certified, which means having procedures in place to avoid confusing FSC certified wood with non-certified wood. The exception is a couple of minor suppliers who are unable to bear the cost of certification. But we make sure these suppliers procure FSC wood for our purchases. In such cases, the traceability chain is broken and the products cannot be sold under the FSC label. However, Savo has decided to favour the small companies in the knowledge that the non-certified wood comes from good sources.
Savo’s FSC licence number is FSC-C009111.
Savo Spine is a modular seating platform whose components can be put together to create different variants to suit all kinds of settings and assignments throughout the office.
The idea for a chair that could be put together like Lego pieces to suit different persons, situations and assignments was born from the insight that both today’s and tomorrow’s workplaces will need the ability to be tailored and individualized. Because furniture, like so many other things, needs to be adaptable to suit working methods and settings undergoing constant change.
The modular Savo Spine platform was developed in collaboration with the Form Us With Love design studio. The studio solves complex problems by analysing industry, working culture, social requirements and system changes that affect multiple areas. The shared vision for Savo Spine was to create tomorrow’s hybrid seating. The ambition was to create furniture that functions as an investment as the platform can form part of an operation for a long time thanks to its flexibility and upgradability. Savo Spine is thus a response to events within the development of office environments in recent times, i.e. fewer natural barriers and personal seating and more shared zones. The platform needed to adapt easily to settings with different aesthetics and functions. Thanks to components that can be repaired or updated for new functions, Savo Spine is able to grow over time.
Savo Spine’s flexible design stands the test of time, making the chairs user-friendly, eco-friendly and aesthetically sustainable. The outcome is a product that can grow in line with the development of new components. The layer-by-layer design means components can be taken apart, put together and remodelled to form all platform variants to suit the entire office. The platform takes its name from its “backbone”, which not only provides the backrest with natural give, but also allows Savo Spine to be tailored according to needs.
Spine’s layer-by-layer design gives the platform aesthetic, ergonomic and sustainability advantages. The layer-by-layer approach provides the ability to redesign and renew the chair as needed by replacing or e.g. repainting or reupholstering the components. This gives the product new life without the customer having to buy a brand new piece. The material is also easy to recycle when part or all of Savo Spine must be replaced.
The rounded seat affords an inviting sitting experience, and the rocking mechanism provides 360° freedom of movement for more active sitting. Both the upright and the backrest are slightly curved to provide good support and encourage movement when the occupant leans back.
The headrest is available in a small and large variant to make it easier to maintain a good neck posture in conjunction with extended working periods. The headrest is designed primarily to provide a screen for both hearing and the occupant’s field of view. The backrest and headrest positions are easily set using an infinitely variable bracket. The backrest and headrest can also be removed or added as required.
The concept Savo Spine came from the realization that, as with so much else, furniture needs to be adapted to constantly changing working methods and environments.
Savo partnered with Form Us With Love, sharing the ambition to create future-oriented office furniture. We wanted to create something that one could see as an investment that can be part of a business for a long time due to upgradeability and flexibility. It is the fruit of what we have seen in how the development has gone in office environments recently, with fewer natural barriers, fewer personal offices and more shared zones. The solution to the challenge became a modular platform, and Savo Spine was born.
The platform needed to adapt easily to different environments with different aesthetics and functions. Components that can be updated for new functions and repairs – a product that can grow over time with the development of new components. As the name suggests, Spine has a “spine” with a step-less bracket to adjust the height of the backrest and headrest. The modular and flexible design means you can use and change the platform as you like and simultaneously keep the entire office’s look together. Spine becomes a common thread that connects everything from meeting rooms to touch-down office areas and studio environments.
Savo lives by the watchwords “reduce, reuse, repair and recycle”, and a major part of Savo’s sustainability efforts focuses on product development for the circular economy. The chairs are made using a layer-by-layer design which means all components can be removed, repaired and updated over time, giving them long life and durability.
Because Savo Spine is a modular platform, you can create a theme at the office that unifies different models in the same setting or the same models in different settings. And to further emphasize a uniform expression, you can let a single colour play the leading role in every variant.
In open spaces with many work chairs, numerous identical chairs create a well-thought-out, uniform expression. Let Savo Spine create a theme at the office where e.g. low and high variants create a graphic dynamic in their various settings. Furniture with accent colours are a very effective way of adding vitality to an office and cheering up people and spaces alike. You could let the same variant with different colours provide a theme across all of your spaces; you could use a single variant in different settings, combine different chairs in a single setting or use multiple variants in multiple settings.
For workplaces offering flexible work, the office has become more of a destination for collaboration, and this demands inviting spaces designed to suit different types of gatherings. Meeting rooms are very much at the heart of any office. They allow us to go a bit wild with the look as they are enclosed spaces that do not affect the external image, but provide energy for anyone occupying the room. Savo Spine without the headrest is a classic. Stylish and comfortable throughout long meetings, it does not take up too much space. In smaller meeting rooms, a mix of different chairs can provide a more informal, relaxed feel. The opportunities for creating spaces that promote ideas, collaboration and planning, and which provide a sense of belonging and creativity are endless.
Conference rooms can be a little stricter, as befits board meetings and business meetings. Savo Spine with a small neck rest is a chair with a compelling presence in the conference room.
Savo Spine with a large headrest provides focus in open office landscapes, while its neat silhouette creates a light and airy feel and avoids creating that ‘wall of chairs’ impression. The headrest also serves as a screen for both hearing and the occupant’s field of view.
Its characteristic design makes Savo Spine an eye-catcher in both open settings and enclosed spaces.
Its slender silhouette also makes Savo Spine the perfect extra seat for touchdown areas where you need a smaller chair without disturbing the overall look. Savo Spine is available as a regular chair, high chair and stool.
Offices that invest in flexibility for their employees are here to stay. The Savo Spine platform not only offers flexibility in every setting it’s used in, but also in the way it can be modified to suit changing needs and assignments in the workplace.
The ability of workplaces to adapt to their employees’ wishes regarding flexibility is becoming an expectation rather than just a benefit. According to the 2022 Recruitment Report, flexibility has already emerged as the most important benefit at work, even overtaking higher pay. This expectation of tomorrow’s working methods gave rise to Savo Spine, a modular platform that challenges what an office chair should be, and what it can become. Savo Spine is designed in collaboration with Form Us With Love The studio is renowned for exploring culture, industry and day-to-day challenges to create sustainable design solutions that promote change.
Today’s office environments have fewer natural barriers and personal offices, but all the more shared zones. Savo Spine is a modular design that can be modified to suit office environments, assignments and the existing or potential needs of the workplace.
Sometimes, a stool with castors is all that’s needed; other times, it’s good to focus on your work without being disturbed by colleagues and noise. Different people simply need different things from one day to another. For example, if we begin with a chair with a small headrest, it’s easy to switch to a larger headrest, or vice versa.
Savo Spine is available as a stool, a meeting chair with a backrest, a high stool and a work chair with a large or small headrest. All the versions have castors and can be combined with one another, as Savo Spine’s design features create a unifying theme throughout the office regardless of the different versions chosen. Thanks to its layer-by-layer design, its components can be updated for new functions or aesthetics, which means Savo Spine can be a natural part of the workplace for a long time to come.
Savo Spine, which was developed in collaboration with the Form Us With Love design studio, is a unique modular office seating platform created to meet the growing demand for flexibility.
The design collaboration between Savo and Form Us With Love took off when both parties realized that like so much else, furniture must also be adapted to suit constantly changing working methods and environments. The result is Spine a modular platform that erases the border between product design and adaptability for the whole office.
The idea behind the modular platform was born out of the need for workplaces to grow or shrink over time, thus also requiring furniture that can be updated, individually modified and rebuilt. With flexibility and mobility as its primary characteristics, Spine can be adapted to current needs and be rebuilt over and over again.
“Spine’s design breaks away from the conventional image of an office chair and the platform has style at many levels. Through a choice of materials and colours, Spine is able to go from neutral to an eyecatcher that takes its rightful place in a room or indeed the entire office”, says John Löfgren, Creative Director and Co-founder of Form Us With Love.
As its name suggests, Spine acts as a backbone with infinitely variable settings for adjusting the height of back and neck supports. The modular, flexible design allows the platform to be used or changed at will while maintaining the same expression throughout the office. Spine becomes a unifying theme that links everything from the meeting room to touchdown areas in office and studio settings.
Tomorrow’s workplace will be even more adaptable, and Spine raises flexibility to a whole new level and makes hybrid furniture a reality
Craig Howarth, Chief Commercial Officer at Savo
Because sustainability is one of Savo’s most important cornerstones, we create recyclable products using sustainable materials. This applies not only to new products, but also to existing items, as our Savo Soul upgrade clearly shows.
At Savo, we constantly seek to reduce our environmental impact by working with sustainability in a variety of ways, both by introducing new, sustainable products and updating existing ones. Our best-selling Savo Soul is a typical example of such an upgrade, which in its black version was updated from virgin plastic to recycled plastic at the end of 2021. Having tried for several years to find a solution with recycled plastic, we finally discovered a raw materials flow that could guarantee the chemical composition, which meant we could phase out virgin plastic and switch to recycled. Following the switch, 48 percent of the material used to produce the black Savo Soul is recycled. Savo Soul also bears the Möbelfakta eco-label, which means it meets the requirements for quality, the environment and social responsibility.
A life cycle analysis of climate emissions before and after the switch to recycled plastic shows that the switch leads to a 43 percent reduction in the chair’s carbon dioxide emissions, compared to the earlier virgin plastic model. From a life cycle perspective, this means the updated chair has a lower climate impact, and because Savo Soul is one of our major sellers it provides a significant environmental benefit by saving 660 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year. This is equivalent to 100 trips around the Earth by diesel car and as such is one of the biggest climate savings we are able to make.
Because recycled plastic often consists of a greyish brown compound that can be dyed black but which is difficult to die white with good results, this sustainable upgrade only applies to the black Savo Soul. Since the black version of Savo Soul is a best-seller, we also provide most climate benefit by using recycled plastic in this particular product.
We will be exhibiting our exciting design collaboration with Form Us With Love for the first time at the Stockholm Furniture Fair. Spine is a unique, modular platform with unlimited flexibility designed for the entire office.
We will be previewing Spine, a new product, at the Stockholm Furniture Fair. Spine was created to meet tomorrow’s need for flexibility and is a modular platform unique in its category. The modular platform concept emerged from the need to update workplaces over time with seating that can be tailored to suit different settings and tasks. Also, Spine has many stylistic levels, and depending on the choice of material and colour, it can go from neutral to an eye-catcher that demands attention in its surroundings. The modular, flexible design allows Spine to be changed at will while maintaining the same expression throughout the office. Spine becomes a unifying theme that links everything from the meeting room to touchdown areas in office and studio settings.
Spine will be presented exclusively at Savo’s stand C11:41, 7–11 February and will be available for purchase from May 2023.
Form Us With Love, founded in 2005, is an international design studio based in Stockholm that boasts many awards. The studio was also among the top five on the Fast Company’s annual list of the world’s most innovative design companies; it is represented at MoMA and regularly listed for Dezeen’s Design Studio of the Year.
We’re proud to offer world-class quality through our intuitive, innovative designs. We will also be presenting Savo 360 at the trade fair. Savo 360 was designed by Olle Lundberg, who won the Red Dot Design award and the Good Design Awards in 2022!
The intelligent combination of ergonomics, sustainability and minimalist design of the SAVO 360 is convincing and makes the swivel chair an attractive piece of seating furniture for a wide range of uses.
Justification from the Red Dot Design Award jury.
Contact us to book a meeting at the fair!
Savo 360 has won the Red Dot Design Award 2022 in the Office Furniture and Office chairs category. The Red Dot Design 2022 jury statement “The intelligent combination of ergonomics, sustainability and minimalist design of the Savo 360 is convincing and makes the swivel chair an attractive piece of seating furniture for a wide range of uses.”
Savo 360 was designed by Olle Lundberg and is a game-changer in office chair design. The goal was to create a sustainable, intuitive office chair with a large proportion of wood, and Savo 360 really challenges the way a flexible office chair can look. Savo 360 is designed to promote movement and provide great flexibility throughout the working day. The chair has a minimalist Scandinavian design and was developed with the office and the home office both in mind. The ergonomics, built-in thanks to the flexibility of the wood, provide immediate comfort. The many design choices make Savo 360 a veritable chameleon.
Olle Lundberg began his career as a designer at the end of the 80s. He studied industrial design at the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, at the University of Essen and at ENSCI – Les Ateliers in Paris. He has been running his own design studio, LundbergDesign, since 1990. The studio has a number of employees whose design projects span a broad, many-faceted field.
LundbergDesign has received several international design awards such as the Red Dot Design and IF awards.
The circular, layer-by-layer design means all components are separable, making it possible to update the chair over time and recycle its materials. All components can be removed, replaced or recycled as necessary. The ability to update as it wears instead of replacing it gives Savo 360 its long life. It has a 10-year warranty, but it’s lifetime can be extended significantly e.g. by replacing the back plate, frame or castors.
Savo 360 is certified by Möbelfakta, meaning it was sustainably produced in terms of quality, the environment and social conditions. Savo 360 consists of 68% recycled and renewable material, and 26% is wood, an unusually high proportion for an office chair. The wood is FSC® certified, which means it comes from responsibly produced forests.
Less than 5% of the chair is plastic, where the components are tool-based, reducing waste to 2% in production! The chair’s slim design and bare-essential functions reduce the material required for manufacture. Due to its practical size, it takes up less space during transport than many other classic office chairs.
(*FSC-C009111)
Because we constantly strive to reduce our environmental impact by using materials, resources and energy in the most climate-smart and efficient ways, we develop sustainable, recyclable products with well-chosen materials such as mesh, wood and recycled plastics.
Our products are developed for the circular economy and have smart, sustainable designs incorporating the layer-by-layer principle. This means components can be removed, repaired and updated over time to provide durable, long-lasting products. The ability to extend a product’s life is crucial for reducing its environmental impact.
Because a major part of the emissions from furniture come from the materials used, recycling and reusing them helps us reduce our climate impact. Thus, an important part of Savo’s sustainability efforts involves developing products designed for the circular economy, which enables recycling and reuse of materials and components, and the choice of eco-friendly, recyclable materials in manufacturing. Products like Savo Soul and Savo Invite are made with mesh backs, and Savo 360 contains a high proportion of FSC® certified* wood and less plastic.
Foam is one of the most eco-hostile materials used in furniture. Not only is less material required in the design of mesh-back chairs, but we also avoid polyurethane foam, which is one of the biggest eco-villains in today’s furniture industry. This makes mesh fabrics a more eco-friendly, sustainable alternative. With Savo Soul leading the charge, mesh has become a Savo signature. Mesh is not only eco-friendly, but also relieves strain and provides great comfort. The fabric’s elasticity, breathability and the extra dimension it adds to the design expression are additional advantages. Our mesh fabrics are OEKO-TEX® certified and free from heavy metals. All of our mesh fabrics meet Möbelfakta requirements for quality and environmental and social responsibility.
We all know plastic is a material that is harmful to the environment, especially if it ends up in nature where it is broken down into microplastics. But there is a difference between plastic and plastic. When used correctly, plastic is a relatively good material for reducing our CO2 footprint when compared to e.g. metal. We also make good use of existing plastics by recycling them, which results in a lower climate impact from a life-cycle perspective. Even though plastic is mainly used in packaging and in the construction sector, the furniture industry must also shoulder its responsibilities. For us, this means avoiding unnecessary plastic during manufacture and making sure any plastic used in our products can be reused or recycled.
In addition to developing new sustainable products, we also upgrade existing ones. A good example is the upgrade of the black edition of our best-selling Savo Soul, where the switch from virgin to recycled plastic means a smaller carbon footprint from a life-cycle perspective. Recycled plastic provides 43% fewer CO2 emissions for an entire seat compared to the virgin plastic in its predecessor. Of the total amount of material used to produce Savo Soul in black, 48% is recycled.
Savo 360, which is made with an unusually high proportion of wood and only 5% plastic, is a further example of how we work with sustainable materials. The large proportion of wood leads to a lower carbon footprint than materials such as plastic or aluminium. In all, Savo 360 uses 68% recycled and renewable materials. The seat also has a modular design, with easily replaceable and renewable components to further extend its service life. The cleverly engineered slimline design also mean less material is needed for manufacturing, and because parts are tool-based, they reduce production waste. Savo 360 bears Möbelfakta eco-labels.
*FSC-C009111
