Furniture manufacturing resource efficiency
Reducing environmental impact of furniture manufacturing
Guide
The main ways to reduce the environmental impact of manufacturing furniture include:
- product design and purchasing
- reducing raw material use
- secondary machining losses through cut-offs
- spraying and coating
- assembly, packaging and returns
For your environmental improvement plans to be effective you should seek management and staff buy-in.
Use an environmental management plan in furniture manufacturing
The most effective way of improving your environmental performance is to use a systematic approach rather than a series of one-off ideas and projects. The most comprehensive method is to set up an environmental management system (EMS).
If you don't have the resources to implement a full EMS, you can still use some of the same steps to manage your resources and environmental impact. These include:
- getting the commitment of senior management to improve environmental performance
- reviewing your existing environmental performance to establish a baseline measure improvements against
- identifying areas for improvement
- creating an action plan of what will be done, by who and when
- setting targets and objectives for improvements
- regularly reviewing performance
For more information see on how to carry out an environmental review of your business.
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