After months of data collection and verification, EPD Australasia has published Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for Tait covering 27 products from the Drum, Softline, Jak + Jil, Cycle, Seam, Pogo, Volley, Rockpool and Correa collections.
EPDs draw on detailed environmental studies called Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs). They report on a product’s environmental impact across its lifecycle, including carbon footprint, resource use and waste generation. EPDs are more commonly available for large-scale structural raw building materials like concrete, steel and timber. But higher-churn fitout items like furniture and lighting are attracting growing interest from sustainability consultants and specialist specifiers. According to the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA), interior fitouts (including outdoor furniture) are ‘Replaced every 5–7 years, [and] are one of the most frequently changed and least examined parts of a building.’ It was also important for us to understand the environmental data specific to our products, which perform differently to many mass-produced products, thanks to our in-house manufacturing and refurbishing programs. ‘Being able to provide architects and clients with credible data offers peace of mind and the ability to quickly and confidently specify,’ explains Creative Director Susan Tait. ‘This accurate data, verified independently and registered with EPD Australasia, ensures complete transparency.’
Selecting furniture with verified EPDs gives specifiers clear insight into a product’s true environmental footprint, helping work towards your own and your clients’ sustainability, carbon emissions reductions and circularity goals, including the GBCA’s Green Star Fitouts tool.
EPD Collections
To track and measure data across our most specified collections, we engaged leading environment and corporate sustainability experts thinkstep-anz to conduct the Life Cycle Assessment. As local manufacturers, the process proved to be a meaningful education for the team. ‘We had to examine in fine detail, every material and manufacturing process (including material weight, raw material and component origin, external processes, transport, wastage etc.) – every supplier and source, every factory process, water and energy use,’ comments our Sustainability Officer Amanda Harcourt. That learning reaches well beyond the EPDs themselves. ‘This data is now added into every product sheet,’ explains Susan Tait, ‘meaning we now know all this information for every single Tait product and can spot from the beginning if we need to make changes to the manufacturing process or materials to improve the sustainability performance’.
Explore EPDs
For Tait, the EPD project is part of an ongoing journey of sustainability inquiry and refinement, undertaken with respected consultants Hip V. Hype. The EPDs are documents that furnish us with critical information, influencing how we do things moving forward. Jeff Vickers, Technical Director at thinkstep-anz, says EPDs matter for furniture manufacturers like us, ‘To fully understand the environmental impacts of their products, and hotspots in particular, which can reveal potential improvements such as the use of alternative raw materials, alternative suppliers, or renewable energy sources. Tait’s EPDs provide a credible baseline for reducing impacts and improving future products,’ he continues, aligning with our mission of elevating A Life Outside – not just for us, but for generations to come.
Contribute towards GBCA Green Star Fitouts and other sustainability frameworks with independently verified, science-based EPD data.
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