Q&A With Dyson: How Do We Create a Sustainable Workplace?

3. How do your products support sustainability in general and in the workplace?

We look at the bigger picture, and as engineers instinctively want to improve things, make them more efficient and use fewer resources. As mentioned, we call it “lean engineering” and it has always been our approach. From day one we have used science, engineering and behaviour change to reduce our impact and that of our products.

For example, paper towels are a single-use consumable that are still widely used around the world, and in workplace washrooms. Globally, more than 660bn tonnes of paper towels are used every year, with most used paper towels not being recycled and create waste which often goes into landfill. But there’s a better way – durable, reusable, long-lasting products, which people love to use.

The more efficient we are in terms of material and energy use, the more sustainable our products will be. Rather than adding material for strength, Dyson engineers use intelligent design and geometry to use the minimum material required. We use a process called Finite Element Analysis to predict how a product will react to real-world forces, such as vibration and heat. This method enables us to trim the thickness of plastic parts, while ensuring durability is never sacrificed.

With the example of our Dyson Airblade™ hand dryers, they are engineered to last, and have been exposed to real-life environments to ensure that they can withstand the pressures of high usage in washrooms, drying hands quickly, yet using just 9.1 kilojoules of energy per dry. They also have up to 85% lower CO₂ impact than paper towels and warm air hand dryers, supported by Life Cycle Assessments from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Carbon Trust. They help to save billions of disposable paper towels every year worldwide and are certified by the Carbon Trust. Creating a better environment in washrooms and the world outside.

At Dyson we design technologies that support sustainability and wellbeing within the built environment, contributing toward building accreditations and standards such as the WELL Building Standard, BREEAM, LEED and Carbon Trust.