Green Works is attempting to save the world through office furniture. Its formula for social betterment might start with a nondescript conference table. On reaching the end of its useful life with a FTSE 100 company, Green Works will take it, save it from the landfill and help the environment. The company will then sell it at a discount to any number of charities, materially aiding their operations, or will dismantle it and recycle its components. The truck carrying the table away from the large corporation's offices might be driven by an ex-homeless man; Green Works tries to recruit its workforce from marginalised communities and rehabilitate them in their day-to-day work life. "The furniture itself is only an engine for change," says Colin Crooks, chief executive of the company, which has five huge warehouses, mostly in the London area. "It can change people's lives and save the environment." Mr Crooks started the company seven years ago while working as an environmental consultant. "In environmental consulting, I found that the most difficult, immutable waste stream was from furniture," he says, adding that an estimated 400,000 tonnes of furniture is dumped every year in the UK, clogging landfills. "At the same time I was a councillor for Lambeth - my night job," he says. "Every community organisation I went to see had a desperate need for office furniture. Their chairs would be tattered and of bad quality, and some didn't even have a filing cabinet. "There was an obvious market opportunity." Green Works, a recipient of a Queen's Award for sustainable development, is a social enterprise structured as a not-for-profit organisation. It receives public grants. But it also generates revenue. Last year, its turn-over was