The impact of eco-design practices on the carbon footprint of furniture: the case of a French furniture retailer

Abstract

BUT, France’s second-largest home equipment retailer, aims to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. Realizing 93% of its total carbon emissions come from the products sold, BUT developed a semi-qualitative eco-scoring system to classify products by their eco-design level. So far, around one-third of products have been graded. Products with good eco-scores are then labeled as ‘eco-designed’. BUT wants to valorize this initiative in its carbon footprint report. The goal of this study is thus to assess the carbon footprint benefits of eco-designing six key furniture categories with the highest carbon footprints: mattress, bookshelf, kitchen box, fabric sofa, chest of drawers, and bed frames. The carbon footprint of eco-designed products is compared to the carbon footprint of non eco-designed products, following ISO 14067 guidelines about quantifying carbon footprint. A cradle-to-gate approach was chosen, covering raw material extraction to manufacturing. Inventories were built using data from eco-scoring grids, including material masses, recycled material share, wood supply and manufacturing energy inputs. This study is innovative in that it is based on representative quantitative data from 2,020 references, covering about 1,000,000 products sold. However, it focuses only on carbon footprint and uses moderate-quality data.

Results are consistent with literature for inventories, impacts per furniture piece, impacts per kg of furniture piece, and life cycle stage hotspots. The study shows a clear decrease in carbon footprint for three categories with eco-design, averaging a 20% reduction. This reduction is attributed to a higher share of recycled materials and sustainable wood, shorter wood supply chains, and cleaner energy sources for manufacturing. However, results are contrasting for the three other categories, as the eco-scoring system 1) does not take into account mass and energy efficiency per functional unit 2) does not rank materials based on their carbon footprint (a wood-based product has no advantage over a glass product for instance) 3) includes other impact categories without proper weighting. Sensitivity analyses on metal composition, impacts of recycled materials, and carbon storage in sustainable wood validated the main hypotheses.

To effectively achieve its decarbonizing objectives, BUT should consider several key actions. First, enhancing the quantitative nature of the eco-score computation would address the limitations of the current system and align it more with the principles of life cycle assessment. Additionally, digitizing the data collection process would enhance efficiency. Harmonizing the eco-scoring system with counterparts at a European level is essential to streamline data acquisition processes and enhance consumer decision-making. Moreover, BUT should deepen its involvement in the design phase to gain a more profound understanding of the industrial processes in furniture manufacturing, ultimately enabling the creation of truly eco-designed products. Last but not least, a more careful consideration of the fair distribution of the decarbonizing costs along the value chain should be undertaken.