Environmental Science

CLC number: X24

Raw Material Consumption Controls on Environment Impacts of Sofa Production: A Case Study Based on Ecological Footprint

¹ Research Institute of Forestry Policy and Information, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing 100091, China
² Operation Centre, Chongming Dongtan Nature Reserve of Shanghai City, Shanghai 202162, China
³ Department of Biological Sciences, Xinzhou Teachers University, Xinzhou 034000, Shanxi, China

† To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: tougaoyouxiang284@163.com

Received: 20 June 2021

Abstract

Wooden furniture production consumes a lot of forest resource and other resources, so it is important to estimate its environmental effect. In this research, we collected data in a sofa factory of China and appraised its environment impacts by the ecological footprint (EF) methodology. The results showed that the total EF of the sofa factory was 2 316.25 gha/year (gha: global hectare). The average EF of a sofa was 0.18 gha/year. For the total EF of the sofa factory, main contribution came from wooden materials (55%), followed by non-wooden materials (41.26%), and these two categories contributed above 96% of the total EF. Human labor accounted for 2.21% of the total footprint. The built land and water contributed a little to the total EF. For the total EF of the wooden materials, main contribution came from wood beams (57.6%), followed by plywood (41.08%); and for the total EF of the non-wooden materials, main contribution came from sponge (95.37%). In the end, we concluded that the incorporate of recycled wooden material and reused sponge in the sofa production could be viewed as an important strategy to achieve more sustainable manufacturing.