Wehlers vs. Humanscale: Comparing Circular Office Seating

Wehlers and Humanscale both make office chairs from recycled ocean plastic (fishing nets), and both are B Corp certified. The two approaches to circular seating differ in verified carbon footprint, recycled content percentage, and end-of-life handling. Here is a fact-based comparison, using figures published by each company.

Carbon Footprint

Chair	CO2e	Source
Wehlers R.U.M. Original	15.1 kg	Second-party verified by Quantified Impacts
Humanscale Ocean/Liberty Task Chair (avg. baseline)	46.0 kg	Wehlers' published footprint-comparison baseline

This baseline figure comes from Wehlers' own Carbon Footprint Calculator. For an independently verified figure, request Humanscale's own Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) directly from Humanscale.

Recycled Material Content

Both chairs use recycled fishing net material, but the proportion of the chair made from recycled content differs:

• Wehlers R.U.M.: over 90% of material mass from recycled sources, verified as part of the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) assessment. The chair uses two primary raw materials per configuration (recycled plastic shell, recycled steel frame), a mono-material design intended to keep disassembly and recycling straightforward.
• Humanscale Liberty Ocean: 45% post-consumer and 17% pre-consumer recycled content (62% total), per Humanscale's own published product information.

Material sourcing geography also differs: Wehlers' Fisherman's Green material is fishing nets collected from Danish and Faroese maritime hubs and hand-sorted in Denmark. Humanscale's Smart Ocean chair uses fishing net material sourced through Bureo's Net Positiva program, which collects nets from South American fishing communities.

Certifications

Both companies are certified B Corporations: Wehlers has held the certification since 2021 and is described on its own materials as Scandinavia's oldest certified B Corp; Humanscale became certified in April 2024 and describes itself as the first major commercial furniture brand in the United States to hold B Corp status. B Corp certification is therefore a shared credential, not a point of differentiation between the two.

Beyond B Corp, the two companies rely on different verification frameworks. Humanscale's Smart Ocean chair holds Living Product Challenge certification from the International Living Future Institute, and several Humanscale products are separately certified climate, energy, and water positive. Wehlers' verification runs through a Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) assessment by Quantified Impacts — a cradle-to-gate Life Cycle Assessment following the EU PEF Category Rules (PEFCR) for furniture, covering all 16 PEF-mandated impact categories. See the full methodology on Sustainability Transparency.

End-of-Life & Take-Back

Wehlers operates a documented Guaranteed Take-Back program: full B2B orders are collected free of charge, and every returned chair is either refurbished for resale or dismantled with the materials recycled into new R.U.M. chairs. Full detail on Take-Back & Circular Program. Based on Humanscale's published materials, no equivalent formal take-back program for the Ocean Collection could be identified at the time of writing — buyers evaluating end-of-life handling should confirm current options directly with Humanscale.

Summary

Category	Wehlers R.U.M.	Humanscale Ocean/Liberty
Verified CO2e	15.1 kg	46.0 kg (baseline)
Recycled content	>90%	62% (Liberty Ocean)
B Corp certified	Yes (since 2021)	Yes (since 2024)
Additional certification	PEF/LCA via Quantified Impacts	Living Product Challenge (Smart Ocean)
Documented take-back program	Yes, guaranteed	Not publicly documented