For most organisations, furniture has never been an ESG topic. It sat in the facilities budget, was bought every decade or so, and was disposed of at the end of a lease.
That is changing. Mandatory climate reporting is now in place for large Australian entities, Scope 3 emissions are under closer scrutiny, and Australia's Circular Economy Framework sets national targets that reach every sector, including the built environment. Furniture sits in the middle of all three.
Facilities, property, procurement and sustainability teams increasingly share responsibility for the same numbers, and the next refresh or relocation can either help those numbers or complicate them.
It is general information, not reporting advice. Organisations should confirm their obligations with their auditors and advisers.
The reporting context in Australia
Australia introduced mandatory climate related financial reporting through amendments to the Corporations Act. Entities report under AASB S2 Climate related Disclosures, the Australian version of the international IFRS S2 standard.
Reporting is phasing in across three groups. An entity falls into a group if it meets two of the three size tests for revenue, gross assets and employees:
- Group 1: financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2025. Revenue of $500 million or more, gross assets of $1 billion or more, 500 or more employees.
- Group 2: financial years beginning on or after 1 July 2026. Revenue of $200 million or more, gross assets of $500 million or more, 250 or more employees.
- Group 3: financial years beginning on or after 1 July 2027. Revenue of $50 million or more, gross assets of $25 million or more, 100 or more employees.
Certain NGER reporters and large asset owners are also captured. A Group 3 entity that concludes it has no material climate related risks or opportunities does not prepare full disclosures, but it must still publish a statement saying so and explaining why. Scope 3 emissions do not have to be disclosed in an entity's first reporting year, and Scope 3 disclosures carry a modified liability period for financial years starting up to 31 December 2027.
Reports cover governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets, including greenhouse gas emissions across Scopes 1, 2 and 3.
Many organisations outside the mandatory regime are also affected. Large clients increasingly ask their suppliers for emissions data and sustainability information, so the expectations flow down supply chains.
Why furniture shows up in Scope 3
Scope 3 covers indirect emissions in an organisation's value chain. For most office based organisations, Scope 3 is the largest share of their footprint.
Under the GHG Protocol, emissions from purchased furniture fall within Scope 3, usually under purchased goods and services or capital goods, depending on how the organisation accounts for it. Emissions from disposing of furniture an organisation owns fall under waste generated in operations.
A full workplace project involves a large volume of manufactured goods: steel, aluminium, timber, plastics, foam and textiles. The embodied emissions in that furniture can be significant, particularly for organisations whose operational emissions are already low.
Early Scope 3 reporting often relies on spend based estimates, which apply emission factors to dollars spent. As reporting matures, organisations move towards supplier specific data, such as Environmental Product Declarations, which give more accurate figures and can reward lower impact choices.
Australia's Circular Economy Framework
The Australian Government released Australia's Circular Economy Framework on 10 December 2024. Its headline goal is to double Australia's circularity rate by 2035.
Alongside that goal, the Framework sets national targets:
- Reduce material footprint per person by 10 per cent.
- Improve material productivity by 30 per cent.
- Achieve an 80 per cent resource recovery rate.
The built environment is one of four priority areas, alongside industry, agriculture and food, and resources. The ABS puts Australia's circularity rate at about 4.3 per cent in 2024, against a global figure of 6.9 per cent, so doubling it is a big ask.
For organisations, the Framework is not a direct compliance obligation in the way AASB S2 is. It does shape government procurement, industry expectations and the direction of future policy.
What circularity looks like for furniture
Circularity means keeping products and materials in use at their highest value for as long as possible. For furniture, that translates into a clear hierarchy:
- Keep and reuse existing furniture where it still suits the need.
- Refurbish and reconfigure, such as new upholstery, worktops or screens on existing frames.
- Redeploy furniture to other sites, teams or organisations.
- Buy durable, repairable, modular products when new furniture is needed.
- Recover materials through recycling when products truly reach end of life.
Each step up the hierarchy avoids the emissions of manufacturing a replacement. Reusing a workstation frame avoids most of its embodied emissions. Recycling its steel recovers some value, but much less.
Making furniture decisions reportable
The practical challenge is data. Organisations that want to report credibly on furniture need information they often do not have today.
Some steps that help:
- Build an asset register: what furniture you own, where it is, its age and condition.
- Ask suppliers for EPDs, recycled content, certification and warranty details at tender stage.
- Require a report at the end of every removal showing what was reused, refurbished, donated, recycled or landfilled, by count or weight.
- Track reuse and refurbishment volumes as part of sustainability reporting.
- Include circularity criteria in procurement, with evidence requirements.
These records support reporting, give management better information for future decisions, and help respond to client questionnaires.
Questions to ask before your next move or refresh
Before committing to a new furniture order or a relocation, a few questions are worth putting to the project team:
- What existing furniture can be retained, refurbished or redeployed?
- What data can the supplier provide on embodied emissions and recycled content?
- How long will new products last, and what parts can be replaced?
- What will happen to furniture that is removed, and how will it be documented?
- How will packaging be handled on delivery?
The answers will not always favour reuse. Sometimes new furniture is the right call. But asking the questions means the decision is deliberate and reportable.
How this plays out on a typical relocation
Consider an organisation moving two floors of staff into a new building at lease end. The default is to buy new furniture for the new space and leave the old furniture for the make good contractor to strip out.
A circular approach looks different. A site assessment counts what is on the floor and records make, condition and quantity. Task chairs and storage in good condition are kept, and workstation frames are refitted with new worktops and screens to match the new design. Furniture that does not suit the new space is redeployed to another site, resold or donated. What remains is separated into material streams for recovery. Every line is recorded.
The organisation buys less new furniture, which reduces both spend and embodied emissions. The report at the end gives the sustainability team a documented reuse and recovery figure, and the facilities team ends up with an asset register it can use at the next decision.
None of this is complicated, but it does need to start early. Assessment, refurbishment and redeployment take time, and they are hard to fit in once the new furniture order has been placed.
Where to start
Furniture is rarely the largest item in an organisation's emissions, but it is one of the most controllable. Decisions about what to keep, what to buy and what to do with the old are made by people within the organisation, and they can be documented.
Binowee Group provides commercial furniture and circular economy services: site assessment, take back, refurbishment, redeployment and resale, with material recovery through our recycling partner Envirobank. Each removal closes with a statement of what left site and where it went, in a form that can be carried into ESG or Green Star reporting. If you are planning a relocation or refresh, we can help build reuse and reporting into the plan from the start.
Planning a relocation or refresh? Ask Binowee Group about site assessments, reuse and the reporting that supports your ESG disclosures.