The rise of green awareness puts designers and manufacturers in a position where they have to back up what they say. A helping hand comes from FIRA (furniture industry research association), who launched an online software tool named Furniture FootPrinter, with an RSA event on April 17th. Pli was there to get a grasp of this brand new green tool for the industry.

Along with a brief introduction to the software, the audience also had the chance to hear about M&S’s Sustainability Programme from their Technical and Sourcing Manager Nick Hill. Having read about their ‘Plan A’ programme in John Grant’s The Green Marketing Manifesto, I was hoping to hear a more progressive and detailed objective than “aiming to be Carbon Neutral by 2012″. Nevertheless, it is good to know that a business as big as M&S is taking an initiative towards a green goal.

In the past two months, Pli have devoted a great deal of time to studying life cycle analysis, developing an in-house LCA methodology. It was very instructive to participate in this FIRA event, in terms of seeing where Pli’s approach stands. Avoiding the well-beaten path, Pli prefers to follow an unconventional method, which uses basic spreadsheets, image editors and word processors in place of expensive, custom computer programming.

Therefore, the life cycle analysis is not just about inputting raw numbers and using the output for benchmarking standards, but rather for thoroughly understanding every step in the life cycle of a product, to help influence future design and process decisions.

This allows a product-management-oriented study, in which there is no focus on any individual effect (e.g. carbon emissions) or process. This is essential for being able to take design qualities (e.g. flat-packability and/or stackability) into account, which are not generally given much attention to in manufacturing-oriented studies.

We are very curious to get our hands on the Furniture FootPrinter and other bespoke LCA methods, and compare the results with what we get from our own studies.