Flute was founded in 2012 by Mary Dorrington Ward and Rod Fountain to bring fast, flexible, sustainable and affordable design office furniture to the market. The duo had spent many years working in the creative industries of publishing, art, interiors, and furniture design, and in 2001 founded a successful designer office furniture dealership representing Europe’s leading commercial furniture brands. Sensing a rapidly growing preference among furniture buyers for sustainable products that could be quickly reconfigured to suit the needs of fast-changing organisations, they sold up to research how they could service this emerging market. After more than four years of R&D and £2.5m of investment FluteOffice products represent the cutting edge of upcyling low value commercial waste into high quality products. In 2013 the Founders were presented with the prestigious FIRA Innovation Award for the pioneering FlutePRO workstation, the first fully compliant office desk to be made entirely from recycled paper. In 2016 following a Series A investment round Flute moved to a new centre of design and technology in West Sussex and opened its first production facility at Discovery Park in Sandwich, Kent. The company now works with some of the largest organisations throughout the UK converting their waste into high value furniture and fittings which are being used throughout their interiors.