Möbel reloaded – Interview with TonicSpaces
The market for reused office furniture is growing and professional structures are beginning to emerge for the possibility of implementing larger projects. This makes it interesting for developers and planners to use used furniture for larger projects. We spoke to the managing director Vincent Jahn of our cooperation partner TonicSpaces from Berlin, who specializes in the project business and provides interesting insights into the possibilities of operating safely and sustainably with used furniture.
Andre Flinterhoff | Archicon:
Vincent, please explain what you do at Tonic Spaces.
Vincent Jahn | TonicSpaces:
TonicSpaces designs furnishing concepts for sustainable working environments and is the first provider in Germany to place used, refurbished (“refurbished”) office furniture in its implementation. This furniture can be purchased in the traditional way or rented flexibly. The CO2 savings achieved by avoiding new purchases are calculated transparently for customers and summarized in a sustainability report. TonicSpaces‘ vision, together with its sister company Fenyx, is to give every piece of office furniture in Europe a new life by 2030.
Andre Flinterhoff | Archicon:
Where does your furniture come from?
Vincent Jahn | TonicSpaces:
The furniture on the TonicSpaces platform comes from primarily 2 sources:
Firstly, a proportion of the furniture comes from our sister company Fenyx. With this company, we help large companies to recycle office furniture that is no longer used. We achieve an average recycling rate of around 80%, partly by reselling the furniture with TonicSpaces.
On the other hand, we digitize and aggregate the stocks of more than 150 professional used furniture dealers in the Roof and Benelux regions. With these 2 sources, our platform includes enough furniture to realize more than 100 furniture combinations for workplaces. This means that we enable our customers to implement a sustainable, single-variety office concept based on a very broad product portfolio with high available quantities.
Andre Flinterhoff | Archicon:
Are you also interested in buying individual pieces of furniture, or are you clearly specialized in projects with larger quantities?
Vincent Jahn | TonicSpaces:
Clearly the latter! Fenyx focuses on the purchase and recycling of office furniture in large quantities, usually from 100 workstations upwards. We specialize in the recycling of entire locations, where many other logistics services are required in addition to furniture recycling.
Andre Flinterhoff | Archicon:
To what extent is your business changing the traditional procurement channels in the office segment?
Vincent Jahn | TonicSpaces:
With TonicSpaces, we are providing large companies with a realistic sustainable alternative to traditional linear procurement. For the first time, companies have the opportunity to access a wide selection of used furniture across regions and then benefit from fast delivery times, sustainability and price advantages. Another important aspect is our sustainability report, in which the CO2 savings are calculated transparently in order to offer purchasing departments a further dimension for the selection of suppliers.
Andre Flinterhoff | Archicon:
How do you think the market for refurbished furniture will develop in the next 3-5 years?
Vincent Jahn | TonicSpaces:
According to studies by Vitra and various market research institutes, the office furniture market in general is expected to grow by 12% over the next five years. This growth is credited solely to the growth of the market share for refurbished furniture: this is expected to increase more than twenty-fold to over 600 million euros. This will also compensate for the decline in the new furniture business.
Andre Flinterhoff | Archicon:
What advantage do you see in working with us at Archicon?
Vincent Jahn | TonicSpaces:
With Archicon, we are gaining a trustworthy partner who shares our vision and with whom we will implement great projects together! One clear advantage is the access to the broad network that Archicon has built up in the industry. We are delighted to be able to present our vision and our concept there!
Vincent, thank you very much for these interesting insights!
