Determination of functional units for carbon footprint verification of panel furniture

Calculating and analyzing carbon footprints has always been an effective way to evaluate the carbon emissions of furniture products. 1. If furniture companies want to maintain healthy development, they must not only focus on profits, but must instead focus on a business model that emphasizes the harmonious development of people and the environment. , The carbon footprint verification of furniture products that has been carried out is generally ineffective, and it has not played a role in reducing the company and even the entire furniture industry.

1 Furniture carbon footprint 4. The dilemma of the inspection The current verification is basically in accordance with the internationally accepted product carbon footprint accounting standards, and a convenient and applicable verification system has not yet been established for furniture products. The existing carbon footprint verification problems of furniture products are mainly There are the following points: the evaluation cycle is long and the cost is high. The product carbon footprint verification is based on the life cycle evaluation of process analysis, which involves a lot of tedious data collection and analysis of these data, so the evaluation cycle is long and the cost is high. , Furniture products have many types of materials and complex processes. The same production line often produces dozens of products at the same time, which also brings great difficulties to data collection and carbon footprint distribution.

The emission data of a single product cannot represent the main products of an enterprise. There are many product models of furniture enterprises, and the materials, functions, shapes and sizes of each product are very different. In this case, the carbon footprint of a certain product The verification results cannot measure the carbon emission level of all products of this enterprise.

There is no comparability in the emission data of products between different companies. The purpose of selecting functional units is to compare the carbon emission data of products. To compare the carbon footprint, first of all, two products can achieve the same function. However, the verification of current furniture products is not at all based on the same functional unit. For example, some companies check a bedside table, some check a wardrobe or desk, and some check products with a specific unit weight, so that the final results cannot be compared. There are no drawers, but they also have different functions. Similarly, there are no drawers to compare.

Because the verification results are not comparable, consumers have no way of knowing whether a product has low-carbon characteristics, and the results of the carbon footprint verification can not explain their position in the industry, except for bringing low-carbon production to employees. The concept of xi I, is only willing to be reduced to an empty slogan in product marketing.

2 Issues determined by the current carbon footprint verification functional units of panel furniture 2.1 General requirements for functional units Most of the carbon footprint evaluation methods for products are whether they can represent the emission level of a type of product, and the carbon emission impact brought by each shape weakens the same series The main material types of products are relatively stable, and the production process is similar. In a certain period of time, the technical level of a company will maintain a certain stability, so the processing technology of products of the same material will also be similar. The closeness of materials and processes allows us to A representative product is selected as the verification functional unit in a category of products or a series of products, and the verification results represent the carbon emission level of this category of products to a certain extent.

The batch size of a single product is not large. In furniture companies, the number of orders for a product is in the tens of thousands, or as many as 300 or 200, and the batch is not large. There is instability and uncertainty in the data samples for verification. In this case, reducing the number of product models to be verified, lengthening the verification time, and obtaining first-hand data from the production process of multiple orders will improve the reliability of the verification results.

The product production cycle is long, and the production of different products is staggered. Furniture enterprises have many production processes and complex processing conditions. In the case of large-scale production lines, different products are processed at the same time, and it is difficult for public energy (electricity, heating, water supply, etc.) and public materials (paint, knives, office supplies, etc.) Accurate allocation to each process of a single product increases the uncertainty of the accounting results. Since the main materials and processing techniques of mixed production products are basically the same, if these different products are converted into a certain number of standard products according to certain rules , and taking this standard product as the functional unit for accounting will make the entire accounting process more simplified.

2.3 Insufficient functional units currently commonly used Insufficient inspection of single product. Among the mature carbon footprint verification standards, it is the most common choice to set a certain product as a functional unit. However, most of the furniture production lines are multi-product mixed production, and the equipment also works intermittently. Accurate data cannot be obtained for the actual working time of the equipment and the consumption of public materials for the gross cost of a single piece of furniture, which reduces the reliability of the results. On the other hand, different companies select products with different functions for accounting, and the results obtained are not comparable, which loses the meaning of verification.

Insufficient unit quality verification. In view of the shortage of single product verification, some furniture companies refer to some by weight or. The unit of volume is the product, and the furniture product of unit weight is set as the functional unit. For example, Guangdong Jiangmen Jianwei Furniture Decoration Co., Ltd. calculated that the company's wooden furniture has a carbon footprint value of 1857 grams per 1kg of product in the commercial and commercial stages. However, weight has no substantive significance for the function of a piece of furniture. What consumers buy and use is the use value of furniture such as storage, sitting and sleeping, even if the carbon footprint per unit mass is credible, It is not possible to compare the low carbon levels of the two products. 3 The introduction of "standard products" for carbon footprint verification of furniture 3.1 The setting of "standard products" for carbon footprint verification of panel furniture Determining "standard products" as the functional unit of verification is a convenient way for the panel furniture industry to evaluate the carbon footprint of products. There are so many products in a piece of furniture that it is impossible to count all the products. We can imagine that there are several "standard products", which represent different types of products in the company, which are also representative of the whole furniture market. By calculating these "standard products", companies and consumers can easily compare the carbon emission levels of different companies' products.

Taking the carbon footprint verification of mattresses made by the company, Bayi Group, as an example, since the main materials of various mattresses of the company are relatively uniform and the production processes are similar, all products are converted into a typical model with A mattress with basic functions, the size is 1500x2000x230, is used as the functional unit of carbon footprint verification. The carbon footprint value of each functional unit product is 46.98 kg. The verification result can represent the emission level of all mattress products of the company. If another mattress company were to check in the same way, we would be able to visually compare the difference in carbon footprint between mattresses from the two companies with the same features.

The setting of standard products should comply with the following principles: the typicality of standard products. The technological process, material type, and composition ratio of various materials of standard products should be representative in the product series to which they belong, and the ratio between carbon emission sources should also be close to that of most products of the same series.

The number of standard products is as small as possible. A product cannot represent all categories of products in the entire company. A standard product can be selected from each category or a series of products as a functional unit, but the number of standard products should be as small as possible.

The conversion of each product into a standard product should be reasonable and accurate.

Since the verification results of standard products can represent a class of products, any one P in this class of products should have a certain corresponding relationship with standard products. How to reasonably convert various products into standard products of several units is the key to the establishment of this representativeness. Generally speaking, the conversion model should be based on the quantity of each emission source in the product and the contribution rate of each emission source to the carbon footprint of the product. At present, there is no consistent conversion method, which needs to be further studied.

3.2 The case set by the carbon footprint verification functional unit of panel-type suite furniture Melamine-mounted panel furniture occupies a large market share P, this case selects a melamine panel and head cabinet with a size of 550x420x450 produced by a panel-type suite furniture company in Kunming as the Standard products, i.e. functional units for verification. The product is based on particleboard, covered with melamine impregnated paper and has two drawers. The giant cabinet furniture is a typical opening of the panel furniture, and the other tables and several are regarded as the deformation of the cabinet. The bedside table is a must-have for every suite furniture series, and the size and function of the bedside table between different companies are more consistent and comparable.

After accounting, the carbon footprint value of the bedside table in the commercial-commercial stage is 12.36 kg, which can reflect the carbon emission level of the company's production of panel suite furniture to a certain extent. If other companies use similar products as the functional unit for verification, it can be easily compared. We can even imagine that even if not every company produces such a bedside table, it can be stipulated that products of the same size and function, or even virtual standard products, can be calculated. The result of the comparison is the low-carbon production of each company. at a glance.

4 Conclusion The current carbon footprint verification of furniture products does not fully consider the characteristics of furniture products, such as materials, production processes, and sales models. The investment is huge but the marketing promotion effect has not been obtained: results and social benefits. One of the main reasons is that the functional units are designed. Certainly not: . Mode. Production: complex,: count all; the workload of the product is large, which is not conducive to a clear comparison of the carbon footprint difference of the product. At the same time, the main materials of the same type or series of panel furniture products are the same, the production process is similar, and there is a certain correspondence between the carbon footprints of the products. Using a standard product as the functional unit of accounting not only simplifies the verification work, but also facilitates the comparison of carbon emission levels within the company and between products of different companies.