Stichting Innovatie Glastuinbouw Nederland (SIGN), which is the Dutch Foundation for Innovation in Greenhouse Horticulture, has started a project with Gispen to use waste streams from greenhouse horticulture as circular building material. Gispen is a market leader in the field of office design and has, among other things, a framework contract with the national government. Six months ago SIGN approached the company to work together on circular (building) materials for their interior products.
Workbox
The GISPEN Workbox is a modular meeting unit and this meeting unit seemed suitable to be made more sustainable with acoustic panels of waste streams from greenhouse horticulture. SIGN commissioned CoBBE (Hogeschool Avans) to develop mycelium composites based on tomato stalks. The start-up Fungalogic was commissioned for the development of the acoustic panels.
The circular acoustic panels are technically applicable in several products. The first product is the circular version of the Workbox. The greenhouse horticulture materials replace the current ones of stone wool, polyester fabric and MDF.
Green paintings provide clean air
Besides the panels, SIGN also developed paintings with plants and sensors for meeting units. With dynamic ventilation these paintings can provide clean air in the Workbox.
On November 1st Gispen presented the new products to its customers, including the circular version of the Workbox, that was developed in collaboration with SIGN. On November 7, the Workbox could be viewed at a circular exhibition in the Fokker terminal at The Hague for a broader group of governments and industry.
Read more about the project on the Gispen website. Sarah Schiffer, product manager GISPEN, talks about the course of the project in her blog.
The following nurseries are involved in the project: FutaGrow, Prominent, Lans, de Westerschelde, Gebroeders Duijvestijn, Looye and Vereijken.
SIGN is an initiative of LTO Glaskracht Nederland. The investments of SIGN in this program have been made possible by funding from Interpolis, LTO Noord Fondsen, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality.
Source: LTO Glaskracht Nederland