Path, Humanscale’s Latest Task Chair

The Path Task Chair. All images courtesy of Humanscale

Earlier this year Humanscale launched Path, its latest task chair, claiming that it is climate positive and the world’s most sustainable task chair. That’s a big claim and I was skeptical. So I decided to look into the claim and while I was at it, get an update on Humanscale’s overall sustainability program from its Chief Sustainability Officer, Jane Abernethy.

As prep for my interview with Ms. Abernethy I read my officeinsight article on how Humanscale is using the Living Product Challenge (LPC) of the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) to help guide its sustainability program – specifically, during the product development process.

Path Task Chairs in open plan

What I like about the LPC is that it recognizes that the path (not capitalized and no pun intended) to sustainability is one of incremental improvement in the development of products and it doesn’t ignore the role of manufacturing facilities all along the supply chain.

What I like about the Humanscale sustainability effort is that in the four years that have elapsed since we published that article, under Ms. Abernethy’s direction they have studied and incorporated pretty much every sustainability standard available and worked unrelentingly to implement what they’ve learned, not only at Humanscale’s facilities, but up the supply chain as well and even including working to reduce the negative impacts of shipping – both inbound to Humanscale and outbound from its facilities to customers. And as anyone who’s tried it can attest, pushing vendors to produce the kinds of data required is a difficult task.

Path Task Chairs in a collaborative setting

With respect to the claims made regarding the Path Task Chair, Ms. Abernethy said, “We’ve made the data supporting those claims public by publishing a Life Cycle Assessment study that has been audited and certified by a third party consultant, WAP Sustainability.”

The study includes the relevant sustainability standards of the Living Product Challenge (HSC-LP028), Declare (HSC-0064), ANSI/BIFMA LEVEL® 3 (SCS-SCF-05108), as well as the VOC emissions standard Indoor Advantage Gold (SCS-IAQ-05426).

Path Task Chairs in a home office setting

The Path chair joins 25 other Humanscale products in being recognized by the LPC as certified climate, water and energy positive. The sustainability claims of Path are the result of a long-lasting effort to develop products that are ever more sustainable. This underscores the steady incremental improvement theory of the LPC, ANSI/BIFMA LEVEL® and Declare.

But there is nearly always a gap between the negative impact of a product and its being climate, water and energy positive. I’m particularly skeptical of claims of being climate positive, considering long supply chains and complex manufacturing operations involved in every stage of manufacturing every part. One way Humanscale bridges the energy gap is by underwriting solar energy installations for several non-profit organizations. Its manufacturing sites use only captured rainwater in their manufacturing processes; this is made possible by designing and implementing totally closed-loop water systems that disgorge no waste water from manufacturing.

Path with a simple table desk

In line with the brand’s commitment to healthy materials, Path is toxin-free and comes with transparency labels from both Declare, provided by the International Living Future Institute, and the Health Product Declaration® (HPD) Collaborative.

The chair’s aluminum components are made from 100% post-consumer or post-industrial waste. And in addition each chair contains 9.3 pounds of plastic “harvested” from the ocean.

Path is offered in a variety of textile options, including fabric, leather, and an innovative 3D FormSense Eco Knit™ that is made of 100% post- consumer recycled polyester. Said Ms. Abernethy, “Because the 3D FormSense Eco Knit™ is knitted to the precise shape of our Form-Sensing Mesh backrest as designed by Neils Diffrient for the Liberty Task Chair, it eliminates the need for cutting and sewing thus eliminating two operations in manufacturing as well as textile waste.”

The Path Task Chair’s 3D FormSense Eco Knit™ mesh

Humanscale’s use of smaller box packaging means more chairs per truckload, saving fuel and materials while also being less cumbersome for residential customers. Moreover, Path is specifically designed to be easy to assemble, disassemble, and recycle at the end of its life.

Screenshot from Humanscale’s website

Taking concepts pioneered by Humanscale with Niels Diffrient to the next level, Path’s newly patented recline mechanism represents the latest iteration in Humanscale’s seating technology that self-adjusts to users and offers an automatically personalized sitting experience for a wide range of body shapes and sizes. Path’s patented Gravity Mechanism™ uses “virtual pivot points” for balance and support. Its Auto-Adjusting Technology™ responds uniquely to any sitter’s bodyweight, creating a Universal Counterbalance™ to support them in any position. This provides an Ergonomically Inclusive™ sitting experience that is automatically customized to each individual.

Image from Humanscale’s 2020 Corporate Social Responsibility Report,

The various sustainability standards used to measure the impact of making Path verify that it measurably gives back more than it takes to make, setting a new benchmark for responsible manufacturing. So I must set my skepticism aside. For any of you manufacturers who don’t like Humanscale’s claims of sustainable superiority, all I can say is look at the LCA and if your chair is better, prove it! And for your designers or end users I say give the LCA (warning: it’s technical) a look but also check out the easier to read (but not shorter) Corporate Social Responsibility Report (Here).

Kudos to Humanscale for being so committed to sustainability, to Ms. Abernethy and her team for their dedication to making Humanscale ever more sustainable, to Todd Bracher, designer of the Path Task Chair and to the product development team that successfully brought the ideas and challenges to fruition.

Image from Humanscale’s 2020 Corporate Social Responsibility Report,