L.C.A.

Life cycle thinking  is one of the key approaches in sustainable development.

For this reason, ILPO entrusted to LCA-lab, a spin-off  of ENEA (the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development) two LCA studies:

• the first was applied to the “first life” of the PU shell chair in a ‘cradle-to-gate’ comparison with  a same weight shell produced with PP;
• the second one, further deepens the results attained investigating the “second life” of the same PU shell chair with a recovery scenario through a regeneration process.

The indicators mainly analyzed in the first study are the global warming potential GWP (the so called “carbon footprint”), the ozone layer depletion and the acidification, all demonstrating a significant decrease when evaluating PU instead of PP. 

 The final statement could thus be that when   considering a school classroom made of 25 kids the   measured impact would result in a decrease of 200 Kg   of CO2 released in the atmosphere, which become 4   tons of CO2 for a school of 500 students. In other   words and to make it easy to visualize and remember, ten chairs with PU shells instead of ten PP shells have got the same effect in the atmosphere of three trees per year.

 In the second LCA study of a “second life” (with the regenerated surface, i.e. 15+15 years service life), a PU shell chair produced by ILPO is compared with the same PU shell chair “first life” but produced twice by ILPO. 

The result of this second study shows that the renewing of even only one old shell instead of buying a new one means a decrease of 10 kg of CO2 ……  for a school with 500 students means a reduction of 5 tons of CO2 in the Environment !