Aalborg tender for School Furniture – in a sustainable way

Højer Furniture A/S is a Danish company that are developing, producing and selling furniture’s for schools and other educational institutions. Besides supplying furniture’s for schools, Højer Møbler is also offering counseling to interior design (activating learning spaces), that supports the learning. It means that instead of just having the “normal” five rows of furniture in the classroom (made from the point of view that all children are equal – physically and mentally) the classroom are design to give the best opportunities for all students – that have different needs regarding learning space.

As the final part in the total concept (high quality furniture’s and activating Learning spaces) Højer Møbler A/S is also supporting the concept in a sustainable way where this is possible.

The combination of supplying school furnitures, offering counseling regarding activating learning spaces and being a producers that in many ways are sustainable has meant that Højer Furniture in the autumn 2017 did win the community Aalborg tender for school furniture’s. The Aalborg tender for school furnitures has been the first tender for school furniture’s ever in Denmark where the criteria’s for winning was mainly based on sustainability more that price. It means that 40 % of the weighted criterias for winning this tender was sustainability. The further criterias Counseling, Interior design and Price did each have a weight that was 20 % in this tender.

From the beginning of this year, Højer Møbler started to deliver to the potential 50 schools in Aalborg commune. Compared to other tenders, where Price normally have the majority weight, this Alborg tender did also offering the schools to maintain, repair, reuse and dispose their old school chairs. To handle this Hojer Møbler have a corporation with some socioeconomic units that is taking care of prolonging the life of the furniture’s (repair, etc.).

This is for all parts a win-win situation, and overall the segments do have an advantage in relation to thinking and acting “Place, People and Profit”. For each of the segments the schools can prolong their furnitures and save money for other classroom or purposes. The Commune do have an advantage in getting meaningful work to the socioeconomic units and to get most out of the taxpayer’s money for the schools. For the community it also have a brand value in sending signal for the environment that Aalborg is a “sustainable community”. This will send positive signals to different generations and attract new families to Aalborg.

For Højer Møbler it also has a positive effect on the business and the future relation to the different schools. Further the period for this tender also gives a valuable experience to get the opportunity to “export” the Aalborg sustainability concept to other communes that can take advantage of the knowledge that comes from working with sustainability and schools furnitures in Aalborg community.

There is no doubt that this is the very first step in the right direction for how sustainability can be integrated in a public tender. For sure, this will not be a process that will be implemented for all communes in few years. It will take decades before sustainability is naturally and normally in all tenders, because culture, motivation and focus are different for the community, schools, etc. Aalborg tender for school furniture’s is the first step in the right sustainable direction.