Eco-innovation of a wooden childhood furniture set: An example of environmental solutions in the wood sector
Highlights
► An environmental evaluation of a wooden childhood furniture set was performed. ► Two environmental methodologies have been integrated. ► Ten impact categories have been assessed in detail. ► Proposed eco-design strategies were evaluated from technological, economic and social perspectives. ► Valuable information to improve the furniture sector’s environmental performance and sustainability is proposed.
Introduction
The European Union is one of the largest producers, traders and consumers of wood products in the world (European Commission, 2011). The furniture industry is basically an assembling industry, which employs different raw materials (not only wood but also metals, plastics, and leather) to manufacture different products. At the present time, the European furniture industry has a strong image worldwide thanks to its high level of quality, not only at a technical level, but also aesthetical. Over the 2000–07 period, the furniture industry enjoyed continuous growth due to a set of favorable conditions. However, there is a growing concern about the environmental effects derived from goods production and use as well as on how they are disposed of at the end of their life cycle (Humphrey and Schmitz, 2001). Knowledge regarding the environmental impact of the materials typically used in a specific industrial sector enables companies to improve their products and production processes from an environmental point of view and thus accelerate their entrance into the emerging market for green products (Nedermark, 1998).
The European Union is developing an integrated product policy (IPP) which opens a new area for environmental improvements (Tukker et al., 2000) and covers all products and their environmental effects considering a life cycle perspective as the leading principle. So, the product innovation process forms a new solution to reducing environmental effects.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology is a suitable and valuable tool to assess the environmental impact of products and services, and should be part of the decision-making process towards sustainability (Baumann and Tillman, 2004). Several studies have recently been carried out relative to the production of wooden products destined to different uses such as particleboards (Rivela et al., 2006), medium density fiberboards (Rivela et al., 2007), hardboards (González-García et al., 2009a), floor coverings (Jönsson et al., 1997, Mohammad and Welling, 2002, Petersen and Solberg, 2003, Nebel et al., 2006), window frames (Richter and Gugerli, 1996, Asif et al., 2002), walls (Werner, 2001), furniture (Taylor and van Langenberg, 2003), goods containers (González-García et al., 2011b), paper pulp (González-García et al., 2009b, González-García et al., 2011c), writing paper (Lopes et al., 2003) or packaging materials (Farreny et al., 2008). In all these studies the environmental performance was identified for the different wooden production systems, and the environmental “hot spots” were determined and improvement alternatives were proposed. An example of the proposal of improvement alternatives can be found in González-García et al. (2011a) where a comparison between eco-hardboards and conventional ones was carried out in order to demonstrate the environmental impacts associated with both options. Wood (especially from sustainable harvesting practices) has been shown to be the best material for use in many different applications as it has a minimal impact on the environment compared to other materials such as metals and plastics (Petersen and Solberg, 2003, Werner and Richter, 2007).
Eco-design or Design for Environment (DfE) refers to the systematic incorporation of environmental factors into product design and development and may play an essential role in IPP (Tukker et al., 2000). The ISO 14062 standard was the starting point of this procedure (ISO/TR 14062, 2002) and several studies can be found concerning the description of this methodology (Lewandowska and Kurczewski, 2010a) and various practical applications (Lewandowska and Kurczewski, 2010b). In this context, the furniture sector has been obliged to apply innovation concepts and to differentiate product strategies. Eco-design seems to be a potential tool since it integrates multifaceted aspects of design and environmental considerations. Examples concerning the application of this methodology to industrial sectors can be found in the automobile sector (Muñoz et al., 2006), packaging and packing (Bovea and Gallardo, 2006), the leather tanning industry (Rivela et al., 2004), waste management (Todd et al., 2003) and video/TV units (Nedermark, 1998).
To date, few studies combining LCA and DfE for wood-based products are available in the literature (Nedermark, 1998, González-García et al., 2011b, González-García et al., 2011d, Santolaria et al., 2011. The objective of this paper was to assess a childhood furniture set (a cot which can be converted into three differentiated units: a bed, a study desk and a bedside table) from an environmental perspective with the most suitable design criteria for its eco-design. The environmental profile, as well as environmental hot spots, was identified for each unit and potential improvement alternatives proposed. These improvement alternatives will be the bases for the eco-design of the different units. This type of analysis can be useful to define a best practice handbook for wood products manufacturers not only for childhood furniture but also for other different units.
Section snippets
Environmental assessment methods: LCA and DfE
This study covers the life cycle of a wood childhood furniture set, including not only the production of the wooden set but also its distribution to clients as well as the treatment of waste generated in the production system. The installation and final disposal of the product were excluded from the assessment.
For DfE, a methodology that facilitates the communication of environmental factors to be taken into account in the design of a product (Smith and Wyatt, 2006), a multidisciplinary
Goal and scope definition
This paper aims to identify the environmental impacts associated with the production of a childhood furniture set made up of three different and integrated units: a bed, a study desk and a bedside table. One Spanish company located in Catalonia (NE Spain) considered representative of the state-of-art for the furniture sector was selected to study the production process. This company is an important Spanish producer of childhood furnishings for different uses (playing room, bedrooms, study
Life Cycle Assessment study
An LCA analysis for the production of the childhood room was carried out according to the CML 2 baseline 2000 V2.1 biogenic method to quantify the environmental impact (Guinée et al., 2001). This method results in the definition of an environmental profile for the product under assessment by quantifying the environmental effects on ten categories, while only indirect or intermediate effects on humans can be assessed.
The impact categories analyzed in this study were: abiotic depletion (ADP),
Design for Environment study
The LCA study identified the environmental key processes involved in the manufacture system of the wooden based childhood set under study. Several eco-design strategies were considered in order to minimize the environmental profile of the eco-designed set.
Table 4 shows the results from the eco-briefing. According to these results, the eco-design strategies should be addressed in the conceptual stage that is, it should be necessary to pay attention on the optimization of the amount and variety
Conclusions
Nowadays, furniture sector is paying special attention on environmental and innovative concerns due to the aim of distinguishing its products from other competitors as well as its entrance into the emerging market of green products. The present study was focused on the environmental analysis of a childhood set based on wooden materials, a common set in homes with infants. The innovation of this set is that it is based on a convertible cot which can be transformed into three different units: a
Acknowledgments
This work has been partially financed by the Centre de Difusió Tecnològica de la Fusta i Moble de Catalunya (CENFIM) and the Xunta de Galicia (Project Reference: GRC 2010/37). Dr. S. González-García would like to express her gratitude to the Spanish Ministry of Education for financial support (Grant reference: EX2009-0740) during which this paper was prepared. The authors are also grateful to Muebles ROS (www.ros1.com) for their kind collaboration and contribution with technical data.
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2021, Journal of Cleaner ProductionCitation Excerpt :González-García et al. (2011) analysed the Spanish furniture sector to assess the Carbon Footprint of different wood-based products and derive eco-design strategies. Still in Spain, LCA has been used to evaluate a wooden based modular playground (González-García et al., 2012b) and of a childhood furniture set (González-García et al., 2012c), with the aim of identifying the phases/materials that are most responsible for environmental impacts and with a view to defining eco-design criteria. The identification of the main hotspots has been as well the study focus of Silva et al. (2013), who assessed a medium density particleboard produced in Brazil and of Linkosalmi et al. (2016), who assessed eight different furniture pieces manufactured in Finland (specifically chairs, desks and office/kitchen cabinets).