Innovative and Circular Initiatives in the Furniture Industry Across Europe

With strategic insight into Circular Economy Business Models (CEBM), personas, circular design strategies, and the Digital Product Passport (DPP), an Innovation Camp held in Copenhagen in September offered valuable insights for the entire furniture industry. The event provided an excellent opportunity to explore and dive deeper into how innovative strategies can help develop the furniture industry’s business models and products in line with the circular transition.

The purpose of the camp was to bring researchers and companies together to create a shared foundation for continued collaboration — developing relevant tools, testing them on real company cases, and building a strong basis for future innovation partnerships.

Companies Testing Circular Models

Based on research-driven knowledge, nine European pilot companies from the industry are exploring a range of perspectives within the themes Recycling, Repurpose, Maintain, Reuse, Refurbish, and Repair.

The whole idea behind R-evolve is to address the companies’ concrete challenges.

For example, work focuses on:

• Target group analysis

• Market exploration

• Opportunities for strategic services for B2B customers

• End users and product repair

At the camp, each pilot company had the opportunity to work with innovation models together with experts, students, and industry organisations. This ensures that project participants speak the same (technical) language while also kickstarting the continued pilot work within each company.

The collaboration with the nine pilot companies will continue over the next year, involving testing and feedback on the introduced tools. In this way, many more stakeholders in the furniture industry can benefit from the learnings when the work is summarised and compiled into a series of final tools, models, and guides to be shared after 2026.

R-evolve Innovation Camp – Examples of Learnings

• CEBM (Circular Economy Business Models)
  The pilot companies were introduced to a tool based on stakeholder analysis and the mapping of resources and assets, designed to help identify the right circular economy strategy for each company. This enables them to select the most relevant CEBMs to work with.
  
  
• Personas
  The pilot companies were introduced to a persona tool tailored specifically to the furniture industry, helping them to focus more effectively on the right target groups and their needs.
  
  
• Circular Design Strategies
  During the camp, the first version of an eco-design tool was presented, offering hands-on design strategies and guidelines. The pilot companies tested the tool on specific furniture items — for example, from a disassembly perspective — to identify product design strategies associated with different furniture types. In addition, they worked on circular product design principles for each strategy.
  
  
• DPP (Digital Product Passport)
  The camp successfully launched the work on the Digital Product Passport. A simulated public procurement process identified key checkpoints throughout the entire value chain. Furthermore, a team of companies, knowledge partners, and students worked intensively on topics such as:
• How opportunities around the DPP can be leveraged
• How additional elements beyond the Delegated Act should be addressed
• How to overcome issues related to data quality (data providers)
• Building trust in accurate, complete, and up-to-date data
• Which business models can benefit from DPP data sets

All participants left the camp with a shared understanding of the tasks ahead. The companies gained inspiration and ideas for how to move forward with their challenges, as well as the first version of tools to support this process.

The knowledge partners acquired in-depth insight into the companies they will continue to work with — and received initial feedback on their tools and guides.

Materials Targeted at the Furniture Industry

The results of the pilot companies’ work will later contribute to the development of educational materials aimed at stakeholders in the furniture industry. Tailored guidelines will also be developed on how to implement circular economy (CE)-oriented and systemic product innovation.

The material will be made available to more than 400 companies across the EU, of which at least 50 furniture companies will receive expert coaching on how to implement the innovations in their own operations.

In the coming years, the R-evolve project will focus on:

• Circular economy and systemic product innovation, including innovative business models and circular design strategies

• The Digital Product Passport (DPP) – for example, gathering requirements and developing a governance framework tailored to the needs of the furniture sector

• Development of educational materials based on the innovations from the above activities, including both online and in-person training sessions for stakeholders

• Scaling up CE-oriented solutions by implementing them in at least 50 EU furniture companies using the developed educational materials

A project worth waiting for!