Benefits of re-use case study: Domestic furniture

Executive summary

In 2009, WRAP published Meeting the UK Climate Challenge: The Contribution of Resource Efficiency. This showed that one of the best resource efficiency strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions was reuse.

WRAP has developed a specific methodology for quantifying the benefits of reusing products. This can be applied to a range of products using an accompanying excel-based tool to provide a consistent means of assessing the impacts of different activities. The tool allows the calculation of three environmental indicators (i) greenhouse gas emissions, (ii) energy demand and (iii) resource depletion, and two economic indicators (i) number of jobs and (ii) financial impacts, as well as where the costs and jobs accrue in the supply chain.

The methodology and tool has been tested for specific clothing, furniture and electrical products. This case study describes the results for domestic furniture products. The products chosen were a two seater sofa and a dining table.