At Elfa we take pride in our long heritage of steadily progressing towards sustainable products and production. We recognize that sustainability is a value creator for Elfa, our owners and to society as a whole, and we are committed to continue contributing to a sustainable future for all of us in our society.
Naturally, we work very hard to reduce our company’s impact on environment and resources, in particular in areas where we can make the most significant contributions to society. Our trade demands high attention on product quality, manufacturing techniques, used and wasted resources, and not the least, employee health and safety. These are areas we measure and follow up on closely, and also publish in our yearly sustainability report. Download PDF
– Anders Rothstein
With the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), the global community is addressing the most pressing challenges of our time. As proof of Elfa’s commitment to shoulder our share of the global responsibility, Elfa is a signatory to the UN Global Compact. Accordingly, the ten principles of the UN Global Compact are integrated into our business strategy, policies, and procedures.
Signing the UN Global Compact also carries a promise to actively drive awareness and action in support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. And this we do every day, with a particular focus on the three goals that we can impact more: Decent work and economic growth (SDG 8), Responsible consumption and production (SDG 12) and Peace justice and strong institutions (SDG16).
Elfa agrees whole-heartedly on the UN SDG number 12, to move towards a more sustainable production and consumption. It is our belief that for this to be achieved, our products must be easy to reuse and recycle and which contain as large a proportion of recycled materials as possible.
Design that really matters
It’s a well-known fact that our storage systems are durable to last a lifetime. We are also recognized for being ingenious with our simple and functional designs. Our design principles are important to us, we don’t do one-size-fits-all, neither wear-and-tear.
Though, as any of our product designs inevitably takes a toll of the environment, we are redesigning our assortment. First out was our best-seller, a plain bracket for our classic shelving system. We changed the design and made it smaller. The aim was to reduce its height by nearly a third, a seemingly impossible equation since we didn’t want to sacrifice on the bracket’s load capacity and high quality. But the designers solved it by in-depth construction work and meticulous testing.
In fiscal year 2020 we redesigned more products in the classic assortment. All-in-all this redesign work entails a 12% reduction in the carbon footprint of one of our very popular standard interior solutions, that includes best-sellers like top track, hang standards and brackets.
Sustainable production
It is of course equally important that products are sustainably produced. What can be improved in terms of energy usage and raw materials? How much of our waste ends up in deposit? We take great pride in the fact that the vast majority of Elfa’s assortment are produced in our own factories. Having the means to in detail manage product development and manufacturing, make us in control of the environmental impact our products might have on our environment.
Today Elfa Doors AB and Elfa Manufacturing Poland are ISO 14001:2015-certified. Elfa Sweden AB has an environment management system in place and are in progress to be ISO 14001:2015-certified in 2021.
