Andy Russell

Strategic Growth & Sustainability Advocate

Having spent 25 years in the office furniture industry in the United Kingdom, Andy has recently joined the team at JEB Group, where he will based at the head office in Hong Kong office.

Andy is a passionate advocate for transformative change in the office interiors sector, consistently developing business strategies that align purpose with profits. Whilst his expertise primarily revolves around commercial furniture projects – delivering some of the UK’s flagship installations – he has also pioneered innovative solutions to promote sustainability within the built environment.

Andy developed a bespoke SaaS platform that tracked embodied carbon and its movement, whilst establishing a comprehensive circular furniture recycling facility that housed over 20000 items of second-hand office furniture. These initiatives were designed to simplify the adoption of circular practices, providing meaningful data insights to customers and highlighting the positive impacts of choosing circularity over traditional linear procurement models.

In addition to his professional achievements, Andy holds executive certifications in Business Sustainability Management from the University of Cambridge and Strategic Leadership from INSEAD.

My Sustainability Goals for 2024:

• Circularity – Emphasise design for disassembly and the principles of the circular economy through keeping products and materials in use and regenerating natural systems.
• Fostering a culture of sustainability – Education is at the heart of sustainable change. Increase exposure to climate related topics across the built environment sector so that we can shift mindsets to thinking differently about decisions we make.
• Improve waste management – with a focus on circularity, reuse. We need to make a ‘circular shift’ to focusing on reusing products and materials. Identifying what we really need at the outset, with regard to, what we already have.