Congrats, HAY: first EPDs hit the market

What HAY just published

HAY’s debut set covers four seating families, all under MasterFormat 12 52 13 Chairs. The portfolio includes About A Chair, About A Lounge, About A Stool, and Soft Edge, each issued as a product‑family declaration that lets specifiers cover many variants with one document. The first went live in May 2025, with additional chair families following in June 2025. All four are published with NSF International as the program operator and are current through 2030.

Why this matters in the spec world

Furniture often flies under the radar in carbon accounting until a late submittal stops the show. A product‑specific, third‑party verified EPD replaces conservative defaults with defendable numbers, which removes penalties many projects apply when no EPD is available. Think of the PCR as the Monopoly rulebook and the EPD as your scorecard. If the score is missing, teams hesitate.

Where HAY plays

HAY designs modern furniture for homes, workplaces, education, and hospitality, with a strong contract footprint for seating. Chairs like About A Chair and Soft Edge appear in cafes, meeting rooms, and lecture halls as frequently as they do at home. That cross‑over makes a single, family‑level EPD especially useful for dealers and A&D libraries managing dozens of variants.

Competitive snapshot

Steelcase currently lists a broad set of chair EPDs across multiple models, verified by NSF International. That is deep, category‑leading coverage for office seating and a clear benchmark HAY now meets on documentation.

Vitra shows current EPDs for ACX Soft Office Seating and Tyde 2 tables with SCS Global Services as the operator. Coverage is meaningful yet narrower in seating than the largest North American office brands, which gives HAY room to match or leapfrog on specific families used in flexible office or education.

Arper has a current EPD for the Juno eco chair under EPD International AB. It signals progress in design‑led seating, though the visible set is smaller. HAY’s four‑family release lands well within the first tier for design‑forward European brands.

Program operator choice in context

HAY’s decision to publish with NSF International fits how many North American furniture EPDs are verified today. Operator selection rarely changes the math, but it does streamline reviewer comfort and database visibility when your competitors sit with the same operator. Consistency makes side‑by‑side comparisons faster in bids.

Scope notes buyers will care about

• The declarations are labeled by product family rather than a single SKU. That typically helps estimators cover common shells, bases, and upholstery options under one document.
• All four items sit within the same MasterFormat section, which simplifies material schedules, division‑12 submittals, and renewals down the road.

Visibility check on HAY’s website

We looked for the new EPDs on hay.com and did not find public download links on the sustainability pages at the time of writing. Visibility matters because many procurement teams start with the manufacturer site before hunting registries. Add an EPD section under Sustainability or Product Downloads so dealers and architects can grab the files without email chases. It’s a small edit that pays back quickly.

What this unlocks next

HAY has entered the transparency arena for seating. For projects that expect product‑specific EPDs, these four families turn a potential no‑go into a clean yes. The next commercial lever is simple. Keep expanding coverage across high‑volume variants and make the files easy to find. Great design sells. Documented design gets specified more often, which is the whole point of this work. One tiny tip to close it out. Double‑check internal SKUs map cleanly to what the EPDs cover, so submittals never get stuck on a naming mismatch. That kind of transperency saves time for everyone.