The European "LAIPP" Project: Dissemination of integrated product policy tools in the furniture industry

Through the new approach of Integrated Product Policies (IPP), the European Union is developing measures that influence the supply and demand of environmentally sound products and services. The peculiarity of the Italian production, characterized by the presence of very small enterprises distributed in productive zones, make rather significant the spreading of IPP tools. The wood furniture district of Marche region represents a very interesting case because of its importance for number of enterprises, homogeneity of production typology (and consequently repetition of the actions) and concentration in a bounded area. In this context, the European LIFE project LAIPP "Dissemination of IPP tools in the furniture industry", (October 2004 - April 2007), of which ENEA is a partner, has the following objectives: Survey on a large number of firms of furniture sector to generate a database for benchmarking on environmental performances; Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) on two productive sectors (office furniture and kitchen furniture, aspiration hood included) that will involve six important firms and the respective product chains, with the target to develop sector specific LCA database and to analyse life cycle critical phases; Use by a sample of firms of two specialised softwares tailored for Small and Medium Enterprises: eVerdEE (LCA tool) and TESPI (ecodesign tool); Development of Product Category Rules (PCRs) for two product groups and assignment of an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD); Proposal of a model (and implementation) in the same firms of a Product Oriented Environmental Management System (POEMS). The project foresees three kinds of partners: 1) Public bodies and entrepreneurial Institutions: Marche Region, Municipality of Pesaro, SVIM (a mixed joint-stock company, aiming at implementing public administration action), and the Industrial Associations of Pesaro and Urbino; 2) Scientific and technical bodies: ENEA, University of Ancona, Cosmob (consortium of furniture manufacturers) and Meccano (centre of competence for the mechanical industry); 3) Important companies operating in the wood furniture sector Upper, Grossi Lamiere, Mobilpref, Scavolini and Elica. Awareness and training activities on IPP themes and dissemination of the project results within the main furniture districts in Italy and in some European countries will be carried out during the project, involving companies, public organizations, category associations, research centres.