Designing for sustainability: A comparative analysis of steel and wood based furniture

Abstract

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a methodology that calculates environmental performance of product. In order words, it can be used for calculating environmental adverse effects of product. In this thesis LCA is used for three office chairs and one of them is designed eco-friendly. The system boundaries of this LCA study is cradle-to-grave. Primary data is taken from the company named Koleksiyon Mobilya and secondary data were conducted from literature and assumptions in some cases. SimaPro LCA software version 8.2.0.0 is used in this thesis study and Ecoinvent 3.0 is involved in this study. Thenceforth, two office chairs are assessed with CML IA baseline method to show the environmental adverse effects with regards to eleven environmental impact categories. such as abiotic depletion, global warming potential and so on. The common hotspots of two office chair are came from the part of back frame and mechanism. These parts are made from metals which require significant amount of energy during its life cycle particularly mining and manufacturing. Therefore, the raw material of back frame part is changed with particle board. The reason of selecting particle board is that young’s modulus and compressive strength values are relatively close to the metals. Addition to that, these criteria are essential for the chair durability and comfort of user. Subsequently, the environmental impact results show that the material selection is the key point for designing eco-friendly product. The global warming potential 100a result of one office chair named as Eco-Dastan is 74.7 kg𝐶𝑂2-eq. which is less than the other two office chair which are Dastan 30 and Dastan and Dastan 30 v.2. Consequently, selection of suitable raw material is an indispensable factor for protecting the environment.