The European Union is pursuing the ambitious goal of achieving circularity and climate neutrality by 2050 (European Green Deal), it has been developing a set of policies and measures to drive investments and efforts towards a just and inclusive transition.

FurnCIRCLE project will contribute to promote, strengthen, develop social dialogue at regional, national and EU level within the furniture sector, as it will provide key up-to-date information, tools and recommendations for social partners to address the debate and challenges of the furniture industry circular and climate-neutral transition, including the analysis of implications and changes for employment and work and the new skills needs for workers that this transition will entail.

Furniture companies have to face many legislative challenges in the short and medium term, but there are also many and varied voluntary instruments that companies can use.

In this framework, EU furniture companies need to:

• Know their current and future level of legal compliance with regard to circularity, as well as their maturity level to start or continue their circular transition.

• Identify their priority lines of action.

Develop a survey that allows the massive collection and analysis of sustainability data on the general situation of companies in terms of sustainability at the regional and national level.

The results will allow knowing the original situation of each region/country, guiding the process of circular transition of the different regions/countries, monitoring their evolution in successive years, as well as establishing comparisons between regions/countries. The information collected will strongly contribute to the improvement of the capacities of social partners to contribute to the social dialogue at regional, national and European level. The survey will be available in 10 EU languages and it will be tested in at least 6 countries. The survey will be accessible from the project website in order to facilitate its dissemination, use and exploitation.

Develop practical and validated guidelines to integrate companies existing management models with actions and activities for deploying Circular Economy practices in furniture companies.

Their validation will be done through the involvement of at least 50 experts in Circular Economy and/or Furniture sector through a validation process. The guide will be available in 10 EU languages.

Develop and provide companies with an online tool for the self-evaluation of their level of maturity and their real readiness to deploy Circular Economy practices and to identify the appropriate and priority improvement options.

The tool will be fully adapted to furniture sector companies and will include specific methods and criteria customized to their specific characteristics. The priorities will be discussed and better identified thanks to a workshop (20 participants). The online tool will be available in 10 EU languages.

Implement a pilot assessment of the online tool for companies’ self-evaluation by European companies.

It will be done in selected companies across different EU countries (at least 3 companies in each of 6 EU countries, 18 in total). Specific instructive cards will be the practical outcomes of this SO.

Identify employers’ and employees’ green knowledge and skills needed (updating-upgrading SAWYER results according to the new taxonomy ESCO v1.1) to successfully implement Circular Economy practices and create a set of recommendations for furniture and other sectors stakeholders to foster and support the deployment of the good practices within companies.

The recommendations document will include a section about a preliminary blueprint proposal to deploy take-back schemes for furniture in EU countries.

A follow-up plan

will be designed during project last months and jointly implemented by partners after the end of the project and open to be joined by other sector stakeholders that will be reached during and after the project.

Deliverables

FurnCIRCLE will produce the following key deliverables:

• An online tool that allows the massive collection and analysis of sustainability data on the general situation of companies in terms of sustainability at the regional/national level. In 10 EU languages. Test in 6 countries (SO1).

• A Guide for Furniture Sector Employers, Workers and Stakeholders for deploying Circular Economy practices in furniture companies. In 10 EU languages, printed and in PDF (SO2+6).

• An online tool for self-evaluating the readiness of furniture companies for Circular Economy practices deployment and identify which should be their specific priorities in the field of circularity. In 10 EU languages (SO3).

• A pilot assessment of the online self-evaluation tool done by at least 18 EU companies, which will provide inputs on their key priorities for Circular Economy. Data will be collected in specific instructive cards (SO4).

• A report identifying employers’ and employees’ green knowledge and skills needed (update-upgrade of SAWYER results to the new taxonomy ESCO v1.1) to successfully implement Circular Economy practices and a set of recommendations (in 10 EU languages) for furniture and other sectors stakeholders to foster and support the deployment of these practices in companies and including a section about a preliminary blueprint proposal to deploy take-back schemes for furniture in EU countries (SO5+6).

• A Follow-up plan with clear guidelines for all project partners and other sector stakeholders (SO7).