Kiilto’s environmental webinar series: Circular economy and sustainability reporting: Case Martela
The circular economy and sustainability reporting have emerged as key themes in corporate responsibility work. They can be perplexing, but they also prompt companies to think differently about how they operate. One company that has incorporated circular economy principles into its business is Martela. The approach has brought benefits to the company and helped its customers. Kiilto has supported Martela in finding new circular economy solutions with the help of debondable adhesives.
Life-cycle thinking at the heart of the circular economy
Martela designs and implements user-friendly and responsible working and learning environments. The company aims to ensure that facilities support individual ways of working and learning over the long term. Therefore, the design is based on the purpose of the product, its lifetime, suitable materials, and the usability of the materials at the end of the product’s life cycle.
According to Anne-Maria Peitsalo, Sustainability and Quality Director at Martela, the concept of the circular economy is strongly based on life-cycle thinking. The product should be usable for as long as possible. In particular, for consumer durables such as office and school furniture, the visual design of the product must stand the test of time and be able to withstand the use for which it was designed. When a piece of furniture is no longer useful to its original user, it should find a new user as such, or it should be easily refurbishable to meet the needs of the next user. If a piece of furniture breaks down beyond use, its materials should be easily separable, recyclable and recoverable.
Two perspectives on sustainability
The concept of sustainability is divided into usability, and climate and environmental sustainability. Responsibility means choosing products that are manufactured with minimal impact on the climate and the environment. However, as Peitsalo points out, the product with the least impact on the climate is not always the one best suited for its intended use.
“For example, an unupholstered chair made by Martela may score better in a carbon footprint comparison than an upholstered chair. However, if the product is unsuitable for the planned use, the materials used, the manufacturing process and the space allocated to the product are wasted, and the strain caused on the environment is unnecessary. That’s why consumer durables cannot focus solely on the carbon footprint of manufacturing or the EPD calculation,” says Peitsalo.
Sustainability reporting takes into account your own operations and the entire value chain
Both Martela and Kiilto are preparing for the EU Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) process. The companies have previously followed the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) in their sustainability reports.
Peitsalo and Laura Heinovaara, Sustainability Communications Manager at Kiilto, agree that it is not only regulation that demands sustainability; customers call for it, too.
“Customers increasingly appreciate information about the materials and production methods of products. They want to know the carbon footprint of the product and how much the manufacturing process has impacted the climate and nature,” says Peitsalo.
At the same time, customers and stakeholders are also interested in companies’ climate impacts. This means companies need to be able to distinguish between the climate impacts of the product and the company and report both clearly and accurately. Climate impacts are also a key part of reporting. Soon, all companies will have to monitor the climate impacts of their own activities and of the entire value chain.
According to Heinovaara, it is good that we are constantly learning to assess sustainability in a more holistic way. Reporting helps to identify actions that will have an impact.
“More and more companies will be obliged to do sustainability reporting, which will force them to look at the issues that matter to stakeholders and analyse their performance. This allows the company to assess whether its actions are moving in the right direction and to set more precise goals for the future. That’s why I see reporting first and foremost as a tool for business development and decision-making.”
Environmental and climate impacts clearly and comparably presented
Reporting is used to verify how a company is performing. This gives customers information about what they are paying for when they buy a company’s services or products. As CSRD becomes relevant for all companies, a key question is the accuracy, scope and methodology for calculating environmental and climate impacts. The starting point is to use standardised reporting methods and to present data in a clear and comparable way. This allows stakeholders to assess and compare the sustainability of companies.
“I hope the new reporting model will also facilitate comparability internally. For example, when assessing the potential of the circular economy, it is important to understand the impact not only on emissions, but on factors such as biodiversity. I like to think that while circular economy innovations help companies to develop their solutions, more comprehensive reporting will help us to understand the impact the solutions have,” Heinovaara concludes.
“In this way, both perspectives are truly tools for business development.”