Towards circular office furniture

In June 2023, the CEO project was launched, a new Interreg North Sea project aimed at exploring how to make the office furniture market more sustainable and circular. Frank Dingemans from Kringwinkel Antwerpen, one of the project partners, outlined the current market with some striking figures:

• Every year, 10.5 million tons of office furniture are discarded in the EU.
• 80 to 90% of this furniture is either incinerated or sent to landfills.
• 23% of newly produced office furniture is not recyclable.
• 45% of newly produced office furniture is only partially recyclable.

He also highlighted the changing landscape: since the COVID-19 pandemic, work has become more flexible and hybrid. The effects of this New Way of Working are evident among both employees and employers: in recent years, many home offices have been set up, and numerous companies have redesigned their existing offices. However, despite these changes, some of these offices seem to attract few people, resulting in them remaining largely unused.

Alexandra Vandevyvere from Circular Flanders refreshed everyone's memory. The Interreg North Sea Region project 'ProCirc' aimed to explore how public procurement could catalyze the transition from a linear to a circular economy. From 2019 to June 2023, 11 partners from six countries collaborated on this endeavor. They implemented various pilot projects in circular office furniture. From these projects, they derived several lessons that the CEO project can build upon:

• Circular practices in the furniture sector have reached a relatively mature stage, with significant potential to scale up innovative examples.
• Options for reused, refurbished, and refreshed furniture exist, but collaboration is crucial to realize them effectively. By providing suppliers with better access to discarded furniture and materials, they can better serve the market, and investment readiness should also increase.
• Circular Furniture Services (including consultancy and design services for reuse) can assist organizations in maximizing the use of available resources, making 'purchasing new furniture' a last resort.
• There are six success factors in tendering circular contracts. For example, incentivizing suppliers to propose innovative solutions and linking contracts for new furniture with contracts for reused furniture.

The REFURN-project dates back to 2019. Chris De Roock from WOOD.BE summarized the key lessons learned at that time:

• Start your project with a circular mindset.
• Raise awareness among your customers and stimulate demand for ecodesigned products.
• Manufacturers expect the product to return to them at the end of its lifecycle.
• There is still much work to be done in terms of circular business models.

Five years ago, in 2019, many companies were not familiar with renting or leasing furniture. There was also an expectation that refurbished furniture would be much cheaper, while the price difference with new furniture was only around 20%. Additionally, refurbished furniture still had a second-hand image, and customers doubted its quality. Whether this perception still holds true five years later will be determined by the CEO project.