Aug 26

Data Insights by 2050 Materials: The Furniture Industry’s Lack of Environmental Information to Drive Decision Making

The graph prepared using data from the 2050 Materials API highlights a telling deficit in the availability of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for furniture, a sector contributing notably to global carbon emissions, especially due to the high frequency of fit-outs in commercial buildings.

The visualization shows a disparate distribution of EPDs across different countries, with a significant concentration in Europe and a few scattered instances in North America and Australia.

Despite the furniture industry’s substantial environmental footprint, the data reveals only 230 EPDs globally, suggesting a significant gap in life cycle assessments (LCAs) for these products.

This paucity of EPDs indicates a broader issue within the industry:

A lack of comprehensive environmental data to inform sustainable decision-making.

As regulatory pressures and consumer demands for transparency and sustainability intensify, the furniture industry faces an urgent need to enhance its environmental data practices, thereby enabling more informed and eco-conscious choices.

Data gives you superpowers

Want to understand more about the state of the industry, trends, and analyze environmental impacts around construction products? Check out the 2050 Materials platform and reach out to get access to the API.

Previous Timber Structure Deep Dive — 8 Products and Innovations that Might Get Us to Net-Zero
Next Reducing Embodied Carbon in Construction: Insights and Policy Recommendations from the Essex Embodied Carbon Study

Related articles

Cover image for the article
Data & Research Aug 07

Cost Meets Carbon: 3 Value Engineering Swaps

A cost consultant flags a line, a substitution goes through, and the carbon target set at Stage 2 quietly doubles. Here are the three value engineering swaps we see most often, the real kilograms of CO2e behind each one, and the five minute check that catches them before they happen.

Read more
Curated collection of bricks with Environmental Product Declarations on the 2050 Materials platform
Data & Research Apr 29

The Most Interesting Brick Products with EPDs on the 2050 Materials Platform

This collection brings together a range of bricks with EPDs listed on the 2050 Materials Platform. They include earth-based bricks, handcrafted bricks, clay bricks, reclaimed bricks, reused clinker bricks, and other specialty brick products.

Read more
Climate tech map for construction products showing low-carbon materials and emerging technologies across categories
Data & Research Apr 27

A Climate Tech Map for Construction Products

118 technologies · 16 categories · One verified database. Where the innovation is, who is delivering it, and how close it is to your next specification.

Read more