ANSI/BIFMA e3 - 2019

This standard is applicable to all business and institutional furniture; this includes but is not limited to moveable walls, systems furniture, case goods, tables, seating, and accessories. The standard is also applicable to assemblies and components manufactured by suppliers to furniture manufacturers.
The standard was developed by the Joint Committee on BIFMA e3 Furniture Sustainability using the consensus process described by the American National Standards Institute. The Joint Committee was created by the Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturers Association (BIFMA) and NSF International.

NSF and BIFMA developed this standard in order to provide the marketplace with a meaningful way to assess sustainability initiatives in the office furniture industry and help to distinguish environmentally preferable business and institutional furniture. The Standard is designed to allow for multiple levels of achievement and to provide an open alternative to proprietary protocols.

This standard takes into consideration principles of green chemistry that reduce or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous and polluting substances. It incentivizes the pursuit of increasingly more sustainable products through sustainable product and process design.

Credit assessment is based on primary data, secondary data and generally accepted reference sources. Manufacturing tolerances and batch to batch variation in material infeeds accrue to the final product and may result in variation in individual credit performance over time. For example, steel used in office furniture is generally accepted to be 25% recycle content; however, recycled content of steel can vary from 0% to 100% depending on the availability and quality of recycled content infeeds. While applicants strive for consistency, end users should be aware of potential variation in data collected due to batch to batch variation.