At the Studies in Seating exhibition during 3daysofdesign, we explored the key factors shaping the future of office chairs. Over two insightful days, we gathered and analyzed feedback to gain a deeper understanding of what the next generation of seating solutions will look like.
Held at the Odd Fellow Palace in Copenhagen, visitors were invited to participate in a collaborative creative workshop where they were encouraged to imagine the future of seating. We have now processed and analyzed the responses, which revealed several central themes.
Our visitors’ feedback not only reaffirms our commitment to innovation but also inspires us to push the boundaries of what office chairs can be.
Craig Howarth, CEO of Savo
Some visitors focused on practical suggestions and specific design ideas, while others shared emotional visions of how future seating should feel and function. These insights have led to several key takeaways and ambitions for the future of office seating.
In today’s evolving hybrid work environments, office spaces need to balance functionality with comfort. Insights from Savo’s interactive Studies in Seating exhibition highlighted that seating solutions should create a welcoming, home-like atmosphere. As workspaces evolve, seating must seamlessly combine functionality with comfort to ensure employees feel at ease—especially during long workdays.
For design-conscious and eco-aware consumers, sustainability is no longer just a preference—it’s a necessity. Visitors emphasized the importance of investing in well-designed, durable products that stand the test of time. Longevity, sustainability, and modularity were highlighted as the key pillars for future chair design. Modular systems, in particular, play a crucial role by allowing components to be easily replaced or upgraded, extending the product’s lifespan while minimizing waste.
Ergonomics and comfort are essential in office chairs. Visitors stressed the importance of designs that promote healthy posture, with seating that can be adjusted to individual needs throughout the workday. This focus on ergonomic design reflects a desire for seating that unites functionality and comfort, enabling users to work comfortably without sacrificing their well-being.
The feedback indicated that good design and innovative seating solutions go far beyond basic functionality. Visitors expressed a desire for features like footrests, soft seat cushions, and adaptable modular components. The preference for seating that looks cozy and inviting underscores that aesthetics should not be an afterthought. This highlights that innovative seating solutions should not only serve a functional purpose but also create an emotional connection and enhance the overall workplace experience.
Respondents called for seating solutions that cater to a wide range of users, including those with specific needs. Chairs should be intuitively easy to use and require minimal adjustments, while naturally adapting to the body’s movements. Inclusive and intuitive design ensures that office seating is not only accessible but also user-friendly for everyone.
As we reflect on these insights, it is clear that the future of office seating is not just about meeting today’s needs but also about anticipating the evolving expectations of tomorrow’s work environments. At Savo, we are committed to continually learning from our users and placing their needs at the heart of our product development. We look forward to integrating these findings into our ongoing innovation efforts, ensuring that our chairs remain progressive, intuitive, and focused on people’s well-being.
Extending a product’s lifetime through reuse often means great savings in terms of natural resources. But what challenges and issues should both producers and purchasers consider?
The reuse of furniture involves many challenges that need to be considered. One of the most difficult is making sure no legal requirements are violated and verifying that any components retained in the furniture do not contain any forbidden chemicals. When a product is renovated and put on the market again, current chemicals legislation applies. This means chemicals that were approved 15 years ago may be forbidden today. We will naturally not reuse furniture that incorporates hazardous chemicals, but instead remove it from the circular process.
Customers looking to purchase reused furniture also need to pose the following questions:
There has long been no clear definition of what constitutes used furniture, and this is a problem. Has the furniture been used, and if so for how long? What applies to furniture used in furniture store displays? In principle, we could put new production furniture in a showroom for one hour, repackage it and claim that it’s used furniture. Goods termed second-hand can be in varying conditions and classified as unused, new, good condition or used condition. It’s sometimes difficult to know if furniture has ever been used by the customer or if it was returned directly. Another question is how large a proportion can be replaced for it to be considered reused furniture, and not ‘just’ new production furniture with one or two reused components.
It’s difficult to demand the same quality standards, as reused furniture is often unique and cannot be tested at an accredited laboratory in the same way as new production furniture. Environmental requirements can also be difficult to demand in the same way as for new production furniture because knowledge about the reused components is often limited. If we impose environmental standards that are too tough, no reused furniture will reach the market at all. Unfortunately, the lack of sustainability standards in used-furniture tender documents, together with the absence of a definition of what constitutes reused furniture, has opened a loophole, allowing poor quality furniture to enter the market. This loophole must be closed if we’re to avoid low-quality and environmentally hazardous products on the market. It’s important that purchasers and customers don’t accept furniture of poor quality just because it’s used.
There are further challenges when it comes to reuse that are not immediately obvious. What applies to design and copyright? Is an external company allowed to renovate and modify the design without violating any design registrations and copyright? One way to sidestep this is to only allow original producers to renovate their own furniture. However, this solution is not especially practical for the customer, as many people own furniture from different producers. To make renovating their furniture quick and easy, they like to rely on a single supplier rather than several.
Reusing furniture is fundamentally positive. However, reused furniture means we have to think extra hard during product development and furniture purchasing. It’s not unusual for customers to expect used and renovated furniture to be much cheaper than a new production piece, as there is a notion that the quality is lower than for a brand-new product. Yet furniture producers often struggle to ensure renovated furniture does not end up more expensive than a new production piece. Depending on the type of furniture and the parts that have to be renovated, producers generally face the following challenges:
Used furniture has to be identified, packaged and transported to a suitable renovation site, either to a local furniture restorer or back to the original producer. While this is a cost driver for used furniture, new production furniture does not have these costs.
New production furniture can be made on an assembly line, while used furniture often requires more individual work for each individual piece.
In general, renovation involves more manual work and fewer machines, which drives up costs. For example, repainting requires operations such as sanding, which is not needed for new production furniture.
The obvious guideline for a furniture producer is that renovation should not cost more than new production. A reasonable goal is for reused furniture to cost around 80 per cent of the new production price. To achieve this, a number of steps must be taken. It’s a great advantage if the furniture was designed for ease of renovation right from the beginning. The parts that easily become worn, such as textiles or surface-treated components, must be easy to replace. And no special tools should be necessary when taking the product apart. Replacement parts must also be available, but unfortunately, it’s not unusual for products to be scrapped because of the difficulty in obtaining spares. If a producer has standard components in major quantities for multiple products, there’s an opportunity to take back components, renovate them and use them in new furniture. This is especially true of components that have a major carbon footprint such as gas struts and other metal parts like aluminium swivel bases that can be repainted.
A major challenge for producers is getting in touch with customers holding on to worn-out furniture that needs to be replaced. Because sales often take place through dealerships, after several years it can be difficult for producers to know the location of furniture that may need renovating. This is where dealerships can play a key part in matching customers with producers.
Another alternative is to create a circular process where furniture is rented instead of purchased. This gives producers a financial incentive to create products that are easy-to-maintain and renovate, while knowing where the products are located also facilitates creating a maintenance plan for the furniture.
Hundreds of design aficionados joined us to explore the culture of sitting at this year’s 3daysofdesign festival in Copenhagen. Installed as part of FRAMING at The Odd Fellow Palace, ‘Studies in Seating’ was a unique exhibition that put the office chair under the microscope, inviting visitors to ‘dare to dream’.
Spread across two rooms, ‘Studies in Seating’ highlighted why the humble office chair still deserves a seat at the table. Designed and curated by renowned Stockholm-based design studio Form Us With Love, the exhibition offered an immersive and captivating exploration of the modern workplace setup and its impact on our health and well-being.
The smaller room was transformed into a den of research, experimentation, and relaxation. Visitors were invited to pull up a chair, leaf through Savo’s extensive library of books and material on design, office seating, and ergonomics, or simply take a break in the comfort of one of our chairs while charging their devices. We loved seeing how well the chairs were received and watching visitors test the models for themselves.
This experience provided them with more insight into the world of seating before participating in our interactive research study to imagine the future of the office chair. We’re still working our way through the hundreds of inspiring entries we received throughout the course of the festival, and can’t wait to share the findings at the next design event.
The exhibition’s second room featured a vibrant display showcasing three iconic Savo office chairs: Savo 360, Savo Soul designed by Olle Lundberg, and the recently released Savo Spine by Form Us With Love, which garnered plenty of positive attention during the festival. One of the highlights for us was witnessing visitors engage with the placards accompanying the chairs, showing an interest in their creative development and minutiae of their construction.
It was a pleasure to meet so many like-minded people both at the exhibition in general and during our daily guided breakfast sessions. The coffee and snacks from Juno the Bakery were quickly polished off, fuelling some fantastic discussions and sparking new connections.
We had a memorable, illuminating time from start to finish and appreciated the conversations, new friends, and boundless creativity that transpired over the three-day festival. Being a part of FRAMING at The Odd Fellow Palace and surrounded by so many other fantastic brands has been an incredible and heartening experience. It not only showcased the importance of innovation in design, but reinforced our commitment to pushing the boundaries of office seating.
Thank you to FRAMING and the team, our partners, and all those who made it. To all those who didn’t, we hope to see you at our next event.
Photography: Rickard Grönkvist
It’s easy to get lost in the jungle of certifications that respond to environmental requirements. Which eco-labels are actually relevant in today’s furniture industry?
There are a great many eco-labels on the market, and it can be difficult to decide which are relevant and credible. Many labels are aimed at a specific area or material such as FSC® and PEFC for wooden goods from responsibly managed forestry, or Oeko-Tex® for textiles. One of the reasons for the plethora of eco-labels is that many countries have their own national standards and eco-labels.
The Forest Stewardship Council® is an independent, international membership organisation that encourages the viable, environmentally and socially responsible use of the world’s forests through the FSC® certification system. Savo’s FSC licence number is FSC-C009111.
The EU Ecolabel is a joint European label that covers most product groups and whose criteria resemble those of Möbelfakta and the Nordic Swan.
Blauer Engel or Blue Angel is the world’s oldest eco-label. Its aim is to minimize environmental impact, energy consumption and waste. The label is similar to Möbelfakta and the Nordic Swan, and its criteria are drawn up by the German Environmental Protection Agency.
Greenguard is an American label under which products must meet requirements based on strict standards for emissions and public health.
There are no requirements for eco-labelled furniture in today’s Swedish public tenders. Nevertheless, there is a benefit in using eco-labelled furniture in procurements since any standards can be verified quickly and easily through the relevant eco-labels. Möbelfakta and the Nordic Swan are the most common eco-labels in Sweden and Norway and are the labels that Savo focuses most on. However, Norwegian Møbelfakta should not be confused with Swedish Möbelfakta as these are two entirely different labels with major differences in environmental and social responsibility.
Möbelfakta is the leading eco-label and is in most demand for furniture in Sweden with requirements for quality, the environment and responsible supply chains. Möbelfakta is a non-profit company and an independent Type 1 label according to ISO 14024; Möbelfakta is comparable to the Nordic Swan and the EU Ecolabel. Möbelfakta is an aid for producers, purchasers, designers, architects and others who use or work with furniture.
Möbelfakta standards must be met in the following areas:
Furniture must meet standards of e.g. safety, function, surface resistance, fire regulations, textile standards and in some cases even size and acoustics.
If there is a technical quality assurance standard for a product, producers can often label their furniture through Möbelfakta. Möbelfakta’s technical standards are based on the fulfilment of international EN and ISO standards. In practice, this means sending furniture to an accredited laboratory where it’s tested for resistance to punishing wear with associated durability standards for textiles and painted surfaces.
Möbelfakta’s environmental standards are based largely on UHM’s recommended environmental requirements. Among the things it includes are standards for wood raw materials, formaldehyde emissions and chemical content in textiles, plastics, padding, paints and adhesives. Möbelfakta sets stringent environmental standards for input materials and ensuring that the finished product has minimum impact in both production and usage. Materials must meet high standards regarding chemical content, emissions, sustainable forestry and a minimum impact on people and the environment.
The requirements for finished furniture include labelling and traceability, maintenance and product information, spare parts, recycling and packaging. Thus, Möbelfakta acts as verification that environmental standards in a procurement are met.
Uniquely, Möbelfakta is one of very few labels that require decent working conditions for the people who make furniture. Social responsibility is ensured by charting and analysing the risks associated with the furniture producer’s supply chain. Möbelfakta also requires all suppliers to be assessed for risks regarding breaches of the Code of Conduct, and that measures be taken should the assessment show elevated risks. Möbelfakta requires companies producing furniture to have a Code of Conduct that broadly complies with the fundamental human rights in the UN’s Global Compact and the ILO’s eight core conventions. The Code of Conduct must be communicated down the supply chain, and there is a requirement for this to be verified, along with compliance with the Code on the part of the producer’s supplier as well as other suppliers in the chain.
The other major eco-label for furniture in Sweden today is the Nordic Swan, which is government-owned through the Eco-labelling Sweden organization. The Swan label takes climate, chemicals, resource efficiency and biodiversity into account.
Nordic Swan labelled furniture meets environmental requirements for raw materials such as wood, metal, padding and plastics. The label also takes into account a product’s life cycle, its raw materials, production and usage to reuse, recycling and waste. It sets comprehensive standards for materials and chemicals used in production, emissions of harmful substances and requirements related to the user phase and circularity aspects. Nordic Swan’s environmental standards are broadly equivalent to those of Möbelfakta.
The use of sustainable, renewable raw materials; e.g. a requirement for traceability and at least 70 per cent certified wood raw materials.
Environmental and health properties of chemicals used in manufacturing, as additives to the material or for use as surface treatment. There are also stringent standards regarding the use of substances that are carcinogenic, toxic for reproduction and harmful to genetic material, and the prohibition against halogenated fire retardants, fluorides and antibacterial additives including nanoparticles.
Limitations regarding content and the release of formaldehyde and VOCs in relevant chemicals and materials such as adhesives, padding, textiles, wood-based board and laminates.
Limits for energy consumption during the manufacture of wood-based board and laminates and standby energy consumption for e.g. height-adjustable desks.
Quality and function tests.
Warranties, spare parts availability and circular design.
With up to eight years* of our lives spent sitting in an office chair, comfortable seating should be the standard. And yet people still often settle for less.
Join Savo as we reflect on the culture of sitting at a pivotal moment in the history of work. Designed and curated in collaboration with our Stockholm-based partner, Form Us With Love, ‘Studies in Seating’ explores the factors that shape the office chair, a piece frequently dismissed by the design world as mundane and uninspiring.
Installed as part of FRAMING at the annual 3daysofdesign festival in Copenhagen (12-14 June), the exhibition is spread across two rooms in The Odd Fellow Palace, a stunning mid-1700s venue nestled in the heart of Copenhagen.
Engage with curated materials from Savo’s intriguing design reference library and join in a collaborative ideation study, daring yourself to dream as you envision the future of seating. Discover enlightening new data that aims to deepen our understanding of modern workplace behaviour.
An interactive research space delves into Savo’s rigorous methodology and application of intuitive design and ergonomics. Discover how these learnings translate into three iconic Savo chairs showcased in a visually rich display: the Savo 360; Savo Soul, designed by Olle Lundberg; and our latest release, the award-winning Savo Spine, developed in collaboration with the renowned Form Us With Love design studio.
Event: 3daysofdesign
Location: FRAMING, The Odd Fellow Palace, Copenhagen
Date: 12-14 June, 2024
Time: 10-18 on 12-13 June and 10-17 on 14 June
Start your day with a steaming cup of freshly brewed coffee and a spot of breakfast from a local Danish bakery Juno the bakery, all while immersing yourself in the world of one of Scandinavia’s most innovative furniture manufacturers. Join us daily between 10-10:45 for Savo’s Guided Breakfast Sessions, featuring a guided talk that delves into the brand’s past, present, and future, alongside an exploration of the concept of ‘Studies in Seating’ – Savo’s exhibition at 3daysofdesign curated by our collaborator, renowned design studio Form Us With Love. Meet representatives from both Savo and Form Us With Love, explore the exhibition’s two rooms, browse the curated material in our design reference library, and get creative as you take part in our collaborative ideation study to envision your own interpretation of the future of seating.
Savo Spine was born form the realisation that furniture must adapt to ever-evolving work methods and environments. Designed to seamlessly blend into various aesthetics and functions, the chair features components that can be easily updated, ensuring longevity and adaptability. Savo Spine’s step-less bracket allows for adjustment of the height of the backrest and headrest for customisable support. It’s modular and flexible features enable users to tailor their seating experience while addressing the demand for furniture that scales alongside the workplace.
Challenged with creating an office chair using as little plastic as possible, Savo 360 is an intelligent and intuitive design piece applying ergonomics through the flexibility of the wood. Crafted by Olle Lundberg, the J-bar and back components leverage wood’s natural yield, resulting in a hybrid product that blends the functionality of an office chair with the aesthetic appeal of a wooden chair. Built to withstand the test of time, each part is separable, allowing for updates and adaptions over the chair’s lifetime.
Crafted to intuitively adapt to the user’s individual needs, Savo Soul is a fully-adjustable ergonomic office chair that seamlessly shapes to every body and blends into any workspace. The simple but intelligent design offers all the essential adjustments with logically placed levers and controls, ensuring a comfortable and customizable fit for all users. The mesh back twists and flexes back to accommodate movement, delivering flexibility and versatility to every workplace environment.
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Visit us between 10-18 on 12-13 June and 10-17 on 14 June as part of the joint exhibition FRAMING showcasing exclusive design brands in an inspiring and relevant way.
In a pooled study sample from Melbourne, Australia, employees were found to be sedentary for an average of 6.6 hours while at the workplace. This sedentary behaviour is consistent across various regions, as seen in data from the USA, the UK, the Netherlands, Iran, Australia and Korea. For instance, Americans spend 55% of their waking time, which equates to 7.7 hours per day, engaged in sedentary behaviours, while Europeans allocate 40% of their leisure time, or 2.7 hours per day, to watching television. Similarly, in Korea, adults aged ≥19 years engage in an average of 8.3 hours of sedentary time. Additionally, respondents in Iran spent an average of 6.29 hours of an 8-hour working shift in a sitting position, with a portion expressing discomfort with their workstations and feeling fatigued during the workday. In Glasgow, UK, participants spent approximately 76% of their time at work sitting, amounting to an average of 5.7 hours per day. Meanwhile, the Dutch working population reported sitting for an average of 7 hours each day, with a significant portion of this time spent at work. In Queensland, Australia, the overall average occupational sitting time was found to be over 3 hours per day, with a quarter of the sample reporting sitting for over 6 hours per day. Finally, office-based workers in various cities across the UK, emerged as one of the most sedentary populations, spending 73% of their workday and 66% of their waking day sitting. The calculation for 8 years of sitting was derived from a standard workweek of 6.5 hours per day, 5 days a week, for 47 weeks a year, over 45 years of office life, resulting in a precise figure of 8.45 years spent sitting over an office worker’s career.
In the very near future, we will encounter several new EU regulations aimed at environmental and sustainability issues, and they will mean major changes for the entire furniture industry. This article addresses some of the EU regulations that will impact the furniture industry, and which producers, dealers and architects should be aware of.
One of the new EU regulations that will have the biggest impact is the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) and the Digital Product Passport (DPP), which must accompany every product. This documentation describes all of a product’s phases including origin, materials, sustainability data and information on recycling and dismantling. Better environmental information about furniture means new planning possibilities for architects and interior designers. It also facilitates reuse and the circular economy in a different way than before, as one of the challenges with existing furniture renovation is the lack of information about old furniture.
The taxonomy is a classification system for environmentally sustainable operations that is used as a tool to achieve climate goals within the EU’s green growth strategy. The goal of the taxonomy is to define and categorise sustainable investments, which will affect how companies report and communicate their environmental initiatives. This in turn sets greater demands for transparency, which enables the environmentally aware customer to make more proactive choices.
Proposal Packaging and Packaging Waste (PPWR) will address issues concerning product packaging, mainly with a focus on packaging waste and how it can be recycled. This involves the revaluation of packaging material and design to minimise waste and increase the use of recycled materials.
The promotion of sustainable methods for land-use and forestry falls within the remit of Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF). For furniture producers, this will involve carefully considering the origin of the wood and other raw materials to make sure they come from sustainable sources. In light of this legislation, the Forest Certification FSC® (Savo’s licence number FSC-C009111) will probably gain a more prominent role.
The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDD) will involve more stringent regulations for supply chains, and this will mean companies must actively monitor, identify and address potential risks in their supply chains – both in terms of the environment and human rights. For the furniture industry, where global supplier networks are the norm, carefully considered and thorough risk management will be crucial. Companies that already work with Swedish Möbelfakta enjoy a great advantage in that Möbelfakta has tough requirements for responsible supply chains, while companies that do not work with Möbelfakta will face major challenges in meeting the upcoming legislation.
In all, this legislation seeks to achieve a transition toward a more sustainable, responsible industry. For furniture companies, it will mean a revaluation of a product’s entire lifecycle from the design stage right through to final use and beyond. The future of the furniture industry will be about balancing aesthetics, functionality and sustainability to create beautiful spaces that also take good care of our planet. To succeed with this comprehensive change, companies will need to understand the new EU regulations and actively commit to adapting to them.
The Nordic Swan and Möbelfakta are two major eco-labels
for furniture, what is it that distinguishes them?
Where they concern the environment and quality, the Nordic Swan and Möbelfakta’s requirements are often very alike; they are expressed in slightly different ways but often provide similar end results. The review process differs between Möbelfakta and the Nordic Swan. The Nordic Swan reviews every document before the furniture is approved, which is a costly process and ultimately it’s necessary to pass these costs on to the customer. Möbelfakta has a simpler administration without compromising credibility; when a producer applies for their first Möbelfakta label, all documents are reviewed and an audit is performed on site. For subsequent labelling, only a simple check is made, after which the products are subject to regular spot checks. Because this simpler administration is cheaper, even small producers can afford to certify their products. Both systems are based on the credibility of the producer.
The assertion that the Nordic Swan’s environmental standards are tougher than Möbelfakta’s is to some extent true in certain areas. The differences are quite small; the important thing is the setting of environmental requirements in general, to screen out low-price imports the chemical content of which is unknown and whose quality is often low. Both Möbelfakta and the Nordic Swan are Type 1 certifications, where e.g. the requirements are checked by a third party. Requirements are also gradually raised, with the aim of making sure the furniture is always among the best choices from environmental and health perspectives.
Möbelfakta is one of very few labels that demand decent working conditions for the people who make the furniture, and that furniture companies must be actively engaged in proactive efforts for decent working conditions in the supply chain. This is the biggest difference to the Nordic Swan, whose requirements for furniture do not cover areas such as working conditions or child labour. Möbelfakta also requires companies producing furniture to have a Code of Conduct in line with the fundamental human rights in the UN’s Global Compact and the ILO’s eight core conventions.
1. Support and respect international human rights in the sphere of corporate influence
2. Ensure that their own companies are not involved in human rights violations
3. Uphold freedom of association and recognize the right to collective bargaining
4. Eliminate all forms of forced labour
5. Abolition of child labour
6. Eliminate discrimination in recruitment and assignments
7. Support the precautionary principle with regard to environmental hazards
8. Take initiatives to strengthen environmental awareness
Möbelfakta includes requirements for social responsibility; the Nordic Swan does not.
The Nordic Swan has slightly more stringent environmental requirements in certain areas, such as chemicals and recycled materials.
Different administrative arrangements in the two certifications mean Möbelfakta costs less than the Nordic Swan.
On 5-8 February, Savo and Form Us With Love will invite visitors to provide product feedback during the Testing Grounds exhibition, which will take place in their studio during Stockholm Design Week.
During Stockholm Design week, Form Us with Love will open its studio to host the Testing Grounds exhibition: Parts of tomorrow. Testing Grounds is an exhibition that explores the relationship between product systems and future architectural needs. The exhibition is a collaboration between Form Us with Love and Savo, Ateljé Lyktan, Stolab and Forming Function to engage end users and manufacturers throughout the design process.
Testing Grounds will offer product launches, talks and a party along with dynamic discussions with various requirements specifiers. The exhibition includes installations, detailed presentations of product systems, CGI visualisations and press events, breakfast and lunch meetings, and other informative conversations. Testing Grounds not only acts as a platform for presenting product possibilities, but also for cultivating meaningful relationships. Savo Spine will form part of the exhibition at Norr Malarstrand 58, open 5-8 February.
Savo and Form Us With Love shared an ambition to create future-proof office furniture. Their collaboration resulted in the Savo Spine modular platform. The platform needed to adapt easily to settings with different aesthetics and functions with components that can be updated and evolve over time as new components are developed. Its modular, flexible design allows the platform to be adapted in exactly the way you want while maintaining a uniform look throughout the office.
Contact us to find out more about what’s happening during Stockholm Design Week.
Furniture production impacts the environment in several ways such as haulage, materials, packaging and waste. What actually has the biggest impact?
No less than 85 percent of the climate emissions from furniture comes from the material, and by comparison haulage only accounts for 2 percent of a product’s climate impact. In its extraction and processing, material requires a great deal of energy and resources. Virgin plastic and metal often has a greater environmental impact than alternatives such as wood or recycled materials. Because it has the greatest environmental impact, it’s an advantage if we can use material that is renewable, recycled and recyclable; not to use more material than necessary and to reuse whatever we can.
Many people associate the word reuse with the plain and simple ability to put something to work again. But recycling is another concept that is usually defined through reuse, repair, renovation, re-manufacture, separation and an extended service life. According to Rise (Research Institutes of Sweden) the circular use of furniture reduces the carbon footprint by as much as 20-40 percent compared to purchasing new items. Even though renovation also impacts the environment in the form of resource extraction, energy consumption, haulage and material production, it has less of an impact than new production as the proportion of the furniture that is not replaced has already been produced.
Savo Spine is a modular platform with a circular, layer-by-layer design. By removing and replacing components, Savo Spine can be remodelled to suit requirements or wear. The design gives the platform aesthetic advantages and a sustainability that stands the test of time. Also, the material is easily recycled when parts need to be replaced. In this way, Savo Spine’s design promotes both reuse and recycling.
One way of making furniture more sustainable is to use recycled material in its production. So it was natural for us to make a sustainable upgrade of our best-selling, black Savo Soul. The chair consists of 48 percent recycled plastics, aluminium and steel*. The switch from virgin plastic to recycled reduces the product’s total CO2 emissions by no less than 43 percent. Given annual sales comparable to the earlier variant, chairs with the same proportion of plastic will now provide a total annual CO₂ reduction of 660 tonnes. This is equivalent to 100 trips around the Earth by diesel car every year, and is one of the biggest climate savings we are able to make.
*calculated using Savo Soul with a plastic swivel base and a mesh back without armrests or headrest
We use FSC® certified wood and other controlled materials in our products. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) seeks to ensure that the world’s forests are managed responsibly with the aim of developing forestry practices that take best account of the environment and social conditions. The wood components in Savo 360 reduce CO₂ emissions by 24 percent compared to using parts made from virgin plastic.
One way of reducing material consumption is in the choice of upholstery and by using mesh instead of a fully upholstered back. Savo was a front runner in Scandinavia with mesh backs in our chairs, and the mesh fabrics we use bear the Möbelfakta label. When we use mesh, we not only use less material than with conventional fabric, we also avoid using polyurethane foam, which is a major eco-villain in the furniture industry.
Savo’s FSC licence number is FSC-C009111.
What is an EPD and how can it be used to compare furniture and make eco-friendlier choices?
EPD stands for Environmental Product Declaration and contains product-specific environmental information that reports a product’s content and environmental impact. Among other things, an EPD may cover a product’s materials, packaging, haulage and the consumption of chemicals, energy and water during production.
To create an EPD, one must first conduct a life cycle analysis (LCA) to calculate the product’s emissions and environmental impact on the basis of its life cycle perspective. Because the precise point where the largest climate impact occurs in a life cycle may differ from one product category to another, the LCA calculations must be customised for different products. This is done using product-specific calculation rules known as Product Category Rules (PCR). Data are then transferred from the calculations in the LCA to an EPD. For the calculations to be comparable, both the LCA and EPD are prepared according to the standard ISO 14025, Environmental Labels and Declarations, Type III.
Just because it has an EPD, it does not mean a product is good or bad from a green standpoint. An EPD is only relevant and of interest when we study and evaluate the outcome. In practice, this means that where there are EPDs for two different products, one can see e.g. the climate impact they have caused and how great the difference is. One chair may give rise to 60 kg of CO2 and the other 80 kg. However, one should not fixate on the precise figures. Even though LCAs and EPDs are both prepared according to ISO standards, the results may be affected by simplifications and assumptions made in the calculations. If two pieces of furniture only differ by a few per cent, they are probably equivalent. Comparing two EPDs may also mean comparing different sustainability factors side-by-side such as the proportion of recycled material compared to the proportion of renewable raw material.
In general, there is greater demand for eco-friendly products in the Nordic market compared to the rest of Europe. The purpose of EPDs is to enable the customer to compare and assess the environmental profiles of different products before making a choice. Thus, EPDs can help set environmental goals as they make it easier for consumers and companies to make active choices and select products with as low a climate impact as possible. In Sweden, we have begun to see requirements for EPDs in tenders. Because LCAs are time-consuming and expensive for suppliers, the preparation of EPDs presents a challenge. The requirement for EPDs from the National Agency for Public Procurement is a spearhead issue today, as not all suppliers are able to provide such information. However, one probable development is for EPDs to be used for setting climate impact limit value standards in national environmental goals or climate, energy and environmental goals in the EU.
– Raw materials
– The proportion of recycled and recyclable materials
– Energy recovery
– Water consumption
– Chemicals
– Packaging
– Haulage
– Waste management
– Emissions from production