Interview with Jérémy Van Mullem, the founder of Relieve Furniture: A next-generation furniture solution with second-generation design. This start-up, which is one part marketplace with nearly 12,000 branded furniture items, and one part consultancy agency to help companies design their offices, has already won over major Belgian companies and individuals with its wide-ranging and competitive offering.
Where did the idea for Relieve Furniture come from?
I founded the company in 2020. It’s the younger sibling to a company my father founded, which I watched from a distance, called Hu-Bu. It forges connections between companies and the not-for-profit sector. Through his work, my father realised that many schools and charities were looking for office equipment and furnishings, and many companies were throwing those things away. The idea for Relieve Furniture came directly from this observation, and from the opportunity that this unused furniture represents, which gave me the idea to develop a marketplace dedicated to selling used office furnishings. I also wanted to create a project that had a purpose behind it.
What are the figures in terms of surplus furniture in companies?
Currently, over 42 million items of office furniture and equipment end up in the rubbish each year, and that’s just in Europe. 90% of this equipment is incinerated because there are no alternatives; only 2% is recycled. Over one million items end up being dumped in Belgium each year! From the beginning, the goal of Relieve Furniture has been to reduce this intensive waste by offering a solution for reusing professional office furnishings.
Did you find any similar companies in Belgium or abroad before coming up with Relieve Furniture?
The guiding principle behind Relieve Furniture is to give a second life to standard and designer furniture, but what we do has evolved: in addition to being a marketplace for selling furniture, we also offer services to companies ranging from removing and disposing of furnishings for sale to supporting companies in arranging new work spaces. We are still pioneers in Belgium, but also in France and in England, which we are aiming to expand into soon.
What profiles do Relieve Furniture’s corporate clients fit into?
Since launching, we have worked with more than 5,000 clients, including schools, associations, public and private companies, co-working spaces and self-employed individuals. Our expert service offers end-to-end support for companies who are selling furniture that they no longer use, from creating an inventory of items that could potentially be reused and taking measurements and photos to posting them on our website
How do you work?
On the removal side of things, to populate our sales platform, we receive a lot of requests. We collaborate extensively with the banking, mobility and insurance sectors, which have a lot of potential items. The major bonus that Relieve Furniture offers is our carbon footprint at the end of each removal and disposal. This offers companies a clear insight into the work that we have done: seeing the amount of CO2 that is saved when reusing an item of furniture is information that they can share as well.
Nowadays, the price seems more important for some customers than circular economics or environmentally friendly design. How do you respond to that?
For companies, designs on Relieve Furniture are two or three times cheaper than items on the primary marketplace. We sell items for 30% to 50% of their original retail price, and we only offer mid-range to high-end items, with products from major brands such as Knoll and Herman Miller, Pedrali, Moroso, Vitra and more, as well as Kinnarps, Ethnicraft and Bulo, among other Belgian brands. In order to offer an authentic experience for the general public, we recently launched pop-up sales, and we will be opening our primary warehouse in Brussels one weekend day each month, as announced on the Relieve Furniture Instagram page.
The second-hand trend is booming in fashion in Belgium. What about office furniture?
The Belgian market for this sector is still trailing, but the trend will gain momentum in the coming months. Meanwhile, in France, the law to prevent waste for the circular economy (AGEC) stipulates that any furniture purchased by the state, local authorities and their institutions must include at least 20% reused, repurposed or refurbished products. As a result, Relieve Furniture’s activities also include lobbying. We submit grant applications to the European Commission to accelerate our international growth, and we engage in discussions with institutions and companies that produce furniture.
What is your process for producing safe, reusable and sustainable furniture?
Once we are done creating an inventory, which generally takes three to five days, we conduct a quality check to see what can be used and what may need to be modified or repaired. For inventory, we work on a just-in-time basis, which allows us to deliver directly from the companies to the end customer. This eliminates additional transport for environmental reasons and also optimises the cost of logistics.
Do you work directly with office furniture brands and manufacturers?
For some interior design projects that require more pieces than we have, we sometimes collaborate with companies that are based in Belgium, such as Vitra Circle in Evère, which gives a second life to the Swiss brand’s furnishings. On the other hand, we can offer some of our products to companies that want to sell furniture to feed into the circular economy. We would also like to work with antique dealers and interior designers, as we recover many iconic designer items from large companies. It is not uncommon for us to stumble upon a Wassily armchair by Marcel Breuer, or furniture that was originally designed by Mies van der Rohe, Charles and Ray Eames, Jules Wabbes and so on.
How far does your second-hand offering extend beyond furniture?
We no longer use the terms ‘second hand’ or ‘second life’. We prefer the terms ‘circular’ and ‘second generation’ because we want to enhance the item and equipment that we have. We are still rooted in office furniture (tables, chairs, armchairs, storage), along with lighting. From time to time, we have a few computer monitors or Smeg refrigerators, but not computers because that would require specific technical expertise.
After you clear out their furnishings, or provide them, do companies come back to you?
Yes, and a lot of them at that! They have embraced the circular approach, and understand that Relieve Furniture is a reliable and affordable solution. A parallel would be Backmarket for refurbished electronics. Their offerings could alienate people at first, but it has become a key player for both B2C and B2B. We see that the Relieve Furniture community is growing and that people are comfortable with us, from purchases to the services that we offer. That’s key.