FALK OUTDOOR


Climate Impact
From raw material til End of Life
Every design choice has a climate impact – but not all impacts are obvious.
That’s why we’ve teamed up with Målbar to screen the climate footprint of our products across the entire Product Life Cycle – from raw material acquisition through manufacturing, distribution, use phase and ultimately End of Life.
With data in hand, we can make informed, data-driven decisions and document the impact of our choices.
It’s a step toward greater transparency – and better design conversations.
Material choices play a crucial role in how efficiently we use resources.
We offer FALK Outdoor in two variations: one with 87% post-consumer plastic in the shell (49 % of the total material consumption and one with 70% post-industrial plastic (39% of the total material consumption).
The LCA results from Målbar’s LCA-tool on both variations indicate that the amount of recycled material in each variation influences the total footprint of the chairs.
*This interval shows the potential impact of missing datapoints, that haven’t been possible to obtain through the Supply Chain of the product. Where data is missing, conservative estimates have been used.
How to use the LCA-tool in the design process
Once you understand what a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) includes, the next step is knowing how to apply it in practice.
LCA provides a clear picture of where in a product’s life cycle the climate impact is highest — and just as importantly, where there’s room to reduce it.
By using the LCA-tool early in the design phase, you gain insights that can guide key decisions about materials, waste, transport, and more. It becomes easier to ask the right questions, and to make informed decisions.
To support this, we’ve gathered a set of principles that are useful to keep in mind when designing with environmental impact in focus.
Ideas for design starting points
Ideas for design starting points
Design
- Use a smaller amount of materials – design for lightweight
- Use surface finishes which are durable or easy to renovate in order to increase lifetime
- Design for wear resistance. Avoid denting or chipping edges by rounding them
- Facilitate disassembly of materials in clean fractions and repair e.g. through modular design
- Ensure that surface materials have a good enough wear resistance
Raw materials
- Avoid designing waste in the production. Design for standard dimensions of raw materials
- Use materials and manufacturing methods with low impacts
- Use recycled materials, or left-over materials from your own or other productions
Manufacturing
- Choose manufacturers that use renewable energy sources in their production
- Explore ways to reduce energy consumption and waste
- Avoid toxic chemicals
Distribution
- Reduce packaging weight and use easy-to-recycle packaging (mono-materials)
- Reduce the size of the box if it has a density lower than 300kg/m3
- Reuse packaging materials
- Favor less emitting modes of transportation like ship over airplane and lorry.
- Reduce transport distances
Use
- Design ways for refurbishing the fabrics and surfaces, so that the design can be continuously upgraded.
- Provide information and recommendations like ‘Use organic detergents’ and instructions on how to clean and maintain the product for prolonged lifetime
- Provide instructions on repair, spare part acquisition, and support
End of life
- Facilitate sorting of materials
- Introduce take-back schemes
- Provide recycling centers with instructions
Everyone can play an active role
What is key here, is to understand that it is not enough to focus on reducing the environmental impact from one product life cycle stage or one element of a design. A holistic approach where all aspects of the product life cycle is considered and thought through is crucial. Only this way will we be able to change our business as usual into a responsible approach towards designing, creating, and living.
We all hold a unique position of influence in shaping the future of manufacturing. It’s not just a matter of individual responsibility but a collective effort where every small step count.
Together, we can inspire manufacturers and the entire industry to embrace a more holistic approach.
Designers can act as ambassadors for the green transition by informing their manufacturers about what usually have a large reduction like using renewable energy for manufacturing and avoid creating waste.
Disclaimer: The design ideas are based on the current legislation and knowledge, however, science on the area continuously expands and new knowledge is discovered, which means the content is subject to changes.
Standard for calculation
This climate footprint report is calculated according to EU’s rules for Product Environmental Footprint (PEF). When data was not available from the brand owner, conservative estimates has been applied. All phases of the product lifecycle are included in the calculation. For the phases after factory gate; Use Phase and Disposal, conservative estimates build from the PEF rules are applied. Specifically, the disposal is calculated based on an EU average.
Målbar only reports on Climate Impact.
The data sources behind these calculations are
EcoInvent 3.8 and EF 3.0 and 3.1 PEF data as well as PEF compliant LCA data (read more here: https://www.maalbar.dk/transparency/ )
Method of data application
This report is generated by using MÅLBAR’s Climate Screening Tool with the brand owner first performing a self-assessment after which it has been validated and verified by Målbar (read more here: https://www.maalbar.dk/verification/ )
Responsibility of data
The brand owner has the sole responsibility concerning all input data (including material and packaging weight and dimensions, origins of production and material, as well as transport, warehouse and retail information). With the verification of this report, Målbar has manually controlled these data towards the normal field of data for this product type and questioned the Brand Owner for outliers before completing this report. This is not a third-party verification.
Validity of the screening result
The screening is verified on the 27.05.25 and is valid for 1 year from this date. The screening has been performed in the Målbar software version 2.9703.