Återbruk av kontorsmöbler

Sammanfattning: This thesis was conducted to quantitatively describe environmental and economic benefits from reuse of office furniture together with a status analysis of methods used to calculate that kind of data. Information was gathered from literature and interviews with industry players. The results from the different sources were initially presented separately and later compiled to demonstrate what they indicated as a collective. Four different methods to calculate and estimate benefits from reuse of office furniture was found, being lifecycle analysis, lifecycle cost analysis, a circularity index called “Måttet C” and a requirement-based model. It is also common that both municipalities and companies use estimations from research institutes to describe benefits from their reuse. The environmental benefit of reduced carbon emissions varies from less than a kilogram to more than a metric ton depending on the type of furniture, materials used and labor intensity in manufacturing. Compared to purchasing new furniture does it signify a reduction in the same unit of roughly between 30-70 percent differing accordingly to how much is put in to reconditioning and renovating the furniture. There are also positive possibilities in an economic perspective. With today’s approach one can presume that 40 percent can be saved by the costumer while buying reused instead of new furniture. This market is at an early stage and with further development and enlargement of the market the economic benefits could be even higher.