Transition to a Sustainable Circular Furniture Economy : Integrated environmental and economic impact assessment of circular changes

Abstract: The circular economy is presented as a solution to reconcile environmental protection with economic endeavours. However, only 9% of the global manufacturing currently deploys circularity. Within the furniture industry, with its intensive use of resources, the adoption remains limited. However, the application of furniture remanufacturing practices in Europe is currently estimated to be a €300M turnover while presumably avoiding around 3.3 to 5.7 Mt CO2 eq. The literature on the transition to circular furniture has not yet identified the success factors and practical insights to facilitate the adoption of circularity. Therefore, this research sets out to evaluate the economic and environmental benefit that could be achieved by transitioning from a business-as-usual furniture product to a circular one. The analysis is conducted in cooperation with two European companies – a circular kitchen start-up and a traditional public seating retailer. A cradle-to-grave life cycle costing and life cycle assessment investigates the two case studies regarding their change trajectories for their costs and environmental impacts. With its novel design and changed material composition, the circular kitchen reduced the global warming potential of a standard kitchen by about 40%, which comes at a cost premium of 5%. Likewise, the circular transformation in the second case indicated similar environmental impact changes and economic benefit compared to the conventional product. The total life cycle costs decreased by 10%, while the results reveal a coincidental lowered global warming potential by one fourth. The integrated assessment also reveals the pre-production and production phase for both case studies as the most impactful even after the application of circular strategies. The outcomes coupled with the qualitative assessment further demonstrated decisive internal and external factors accompanying the successful transition of the furniture companies. Still, a vast amount of similar case studies is necessary to validate the change trajectories to facilitate the industry-wide adoption of circular strategies, as discussed in the present study.