Disposal

Disposal is the last phase of the product life cycle. This too have a climate footprint. Whether the product is burned, landfilled, or disassembled and to some degree recycled.

It also includes disposal of production waste.

So what can you do to reduce the impact from disposal?

You can:

• Limit production waste
• Design for disassembly in order to increase recycling
• Create take-back systems

Use Phase

Most products also have a climate impact during their use phase.

This is mostly associated with electric products like lamps and height adjustable desks as well as electronics such as flatscreens, ovens, and refrigerators.

However, all products that are being cleaned or washed on a regular and frequent basis can have quite a high use phase emission. Examples are kitchen ware, clothes, towels, and bedlinen.

Even oiled or soaped wooden furniture that require surface maintanance have a small measurable climate impact during their use phase.

So, what might you do to lower the impact of your products’ use phase? You can:

• Create energy efficient electric appliances
• Advice your customers to wash and dishwash less frequently and on lower degrees and with less detergent.

Transport

How much does transport constitute of your product’s life cycle emissions? It depends on the transport method, the transport length, and the amount of transported goods.

• To lower the emissions from transport method, you can switch to electric cars and lorries, and avoid airtransport.
• To lower your impact from transport length, you can switch to suppliers closer to your distribution center.
• If your box container is light weight (<300kg/m3), your transport is volume dependent, and you can lower your emissions by packing your products more compact, for example as flat-packed.

Packaging

Packaging has trended for some time as a good place to start the green transition. And it is a low-hanging fruit because packaging does not add to the products’ functionality.

So, what can you do to lower your emissions from packaging?

• Switch to FSC certified cardboard and paper.
• Use wood or plant fibers for cushioning
• Minimize the use of single-use packaging material and expand the reuse of packaging materials
• Minimize the amount and weight of packaging

Production

This is often the most important source of climate emissions, since many of the manufacturing processes require large amounts of energy. And if this energy comes from fossil fuels, the climate emissions are often very high. Thus, this is also the category, where you can make a significant difference for more than one product at a time.

The main thing you can do here is to switch to renewable energy on your production facilities or switch to suppliers that use green energy in their production.

Furthermore, you can invest in energy efficient machines, and save energy by turning off equipment when not in use. You can also utilize surplus heat from production to heat office buildings nearby.

Production waste

The production of most products generates an amount of leftover material. Production waste often comes in odd shapes and can be difficult to use for other products. Most of it is burned. Metals are typically remelted and used again.

So, what can you do to minimize emissions from production waste?

• Minimize production waste by optimizing production techniques
• Avoid using fabrics with patterns that need to be cut in a spcific way
• Design products according to standard raw material sizes

Cover

Cover refers to the textiles used to cover a chair or a sofa. Textiles often have quite a high footprint, especially animal materials like wool and leather. Furthermore, a lot of electricity is consumed in the spinning and weaving of fabrics. So, to cut emissions in this category, you can:

• Avoid textiles with wool and choose artificial leather
• Use recycled wool and leather
• Switch to green electricity for spinning and weaving

Upholstery

Upholstery refers to the cushioning of furniture with often foam materials or feathers inside or underneath the textile cover.

Hence, to reduce the impact of upholstery in your furniture, you could:

• Use light weight recycled foam
• Replace plastic wadding with kapok wadding

Surface treatment

Most furniture is surface protected. This entails wooden products that are oiled, lacquered, or laminated and metals that are powder coated, chrome covered, or zinc dipped.
To reduce your impact from surface treatment, in general, you can:

• Reduce the often high amounts of waste from wet spraying and instead apply by hand
• Use bio-based heat or green electricity for drying the surfaces
• Use paints or oils based on linseed oil which contains no solvent and hence consumes less material

Materials

This category covers wood, metal, plastic, stone, ceramics, and glass.

This is about making responsible material decisions.

• Using FSC certified wood
• Making sure that materials are made with green energy
• Minimize the use of material

Lowering your footprint in this category is done during the design process. By developing products, that are durable and light weight, without compromising on quality.