ANEW® (Asset Network for Education Worldwide, Inc.) was founded in 2005 with a vision to improve industry practice by extending circularity of office surplus items through reuse, resale, repurposing and recycling; recording and reporting the outcomes.

Founder Rose Tourje had a successful career in commercial interior design. She had assumed in the early days of the green movement that others were liquidating responsibly but discovered that although companies were reselling and recycling to a small degree, there were no wide scale systems in the works. One day she witnessed “furniture actually being hurled out the windows [of an office building], crashing to the pavement, with skip loaders meeting it and putting it into bins.” She decided to follow one of the trucks and found they went straight to the landfill. She thought, if this is happening with a large public company in Los Angeles, this must be happening everywhere. This caused her to look more closely at industry practices as a whole, noting that the surplus furniture and equipment liquidation process was wasteful and overlooked. She discovered that typically, when a company moves out of its tenant space, the surplus furniture left behind is picked up by a furniture liquidator, mover or construction demolition crew and hauled to landfill. Rose found this unacceptable and irresponsible, and after 30 years of a design career, she decided to leave and start ANEW.

ANEW recognizes the value of surplus from the built environment and reinvented the liquidation process with Surplus Stewardship®. Through this audited practice, ANEW works with corporate companies to steward their surplus furniture and other items away from landfill and back into their communities by matching their surplus to charities, non-profits, public agencies and to the underserved. ANEW educates through action by raising awareness of the social, environmental and economic benefits of Surplus Stewardship®. Every year ANEW records, on average, more than 3 million pounds of surplus to avoid landfill. Since its inception ANEW has matched good and useable surplus items to more than 2,000 recipient organizations in 20 countries.

ANEW is a 501(C)(3) nonprofit organization based in Los Angeles, CA. In 2015 ANEW expanded its business model and is establishing a presence throughout the country in places such as Santa Fe, NM, Seattle, WA, Southern California, Tuscon, AZ, Chicago, IL and Tampa, Florida. Certified by ANEW, decommission, and labor service partners provide the dismantle, load-out and removal of FF&E and construction building materials for community stewardship. The ANEW teams are networked across the U.S. and Canada.

Mission Statement

ANEW works with corporate companies to steward their surplus office furniture and other items away from landfill and back into their communities by matching these items to local organizations. ANEW educates through action by raising awareness of the social, environmental and economic benefits of this practice of Surplus Stewardship®. We are making a positive and lasting impact on society and the planet every day. We are ANEW, doing what's right with what's left®.

Awards & Recognition

• 2023 The International Interior Design Association (IIDA) recognized Rose Tourje, founder of ANEW, for making significant contributions to the design industry
• 2023 Metropolis Magazine features ANEW as one of seven groups that are championing building-material reuse
• 2018 eTown eChievement Award to Rose Tourje - Celebrating those who are making a positive difference in their communities and beyond
• 2017 Mayor's Sustainability Awards, City of Santa Fe, NM: Runner-up in Sustainable Leadership category for Rose Tourje's conception and implementation of the L.A. to Santa Fe Project.
• 2014 Los Angeles County Green Leadership Award.
• 2012 "ANEW doing what's right with what's left ®" Video
  
  Catalina Film Festival: Official Selection
  LA Reel Film Festival: 1st Place Documentary Short
  LA Movie Awards: Award of Excellence, Best Editing, Best Visual Effects
  Awareness Film Festival: Eco Award
• 2009 Los Angeles Fire Department FCCS.RCN Award - community contribution
• 2008 Friends of the National Arboretum (FONA) - presented to ANEW for public service
• 2008 IFMA - Orange County (CA) Chapter - ANEW presents educational seminar for WESTFAC, receives Certification of Appreciation for sponsoring IFMA
• 2007 SHAREFEST - community development, partnership work day - ANEW sponsor
• 2006 IFMA - Los Angeles Chapter, holiday charity benefit - ANEW sponsor