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Product Sustainability Framework launched by Finnish Design Shop
CategoriesSustainable News

Product Sustainability Framework launched by Finnish Design Shop

By Zarkon Group,

Retailer Finnish Design Shop has launched a tool to individually assess and rate the sustainability of more than 20,000 design products featured on its online store.

The retailer’s Product Sustainability Framework intends to support customers in making sustainable design purchases by scoring every item it sells according to a fixed set of criteria tailored specifically for design products.

Scores are determined through a survey directed towards the product manufacturers. The tool assesses five main categories: social responsibility, eco-friendly production, climate impact, sustainable materials, and circular design.

“Each category contains sustainability claims, for which the manufacturer can respond with either yes or no. In total, there are 69 claims,” Finnish Design Shop CEO Teemu Kiiski told Dezeen.

“Manufacturers answer each claim per product, and these claims are based on laws, international agreements, and initiatives.”

This often complex information is assessed and then rated. To make it understandable and comparable for customers, products are badged on the website with one, two or three green leaf symbols, representing good, very good or excellent.

A more detailed breakdown of the product’s score is included in the accompanying sustainability description.

Centenniale coffee table
Nikari’s Centenniale coffee table scored full marks in the climate impact category. Photo is courtesy of Nikari

Explaining why the retailer launched this product-specific framework, Kiiski told Dezeen: “The first reason is the growing demand from customers and professionals for sustainability information regarding the design brands and products. This demand isn’t limited to Finnish Design Shop but extends to the entire design industry.”

“The second reason is that, as a retailer, we have limited means to influence the sustainability of the entire value chain of the products we sell,” he added.

“Through the framework, we can communicate our expectations for product sustainability to manufacturers and guide them towards enhanced sustainability. Simultaneously, we can establish a sustainability standard for the entire industry and lead the way in sustainability matters.”

Puffy lounge chair
A puffy lounge chair by HEM scored highly in the eco-friendly production category. Photo is courtesy of HEM

The specific criteria for each product were developed over two years with Ethica, a Finnish circular design expert partner. They rely on the accuracy of the data supplied by each of their suppliers. “We validate it based on our own data, expertise, and experience,” says Kiiski.

While Finnish Design Shop places a high trust in its suppliers to provide it with accurate information regarding their sustainability practices, it also conducts random spot checks.

“We require product manufacturers to be capable of substantiating the authenticity of each sustainability claim,” Kiiski said.

“We do not conduct audits, and this framework is not a standard, certification, or similar entity; rather, it represents our own criteria for sustainable design.”

Vaarnii's 001 pine stool
Vaarnii’s 001 pine stool achieved 10/10 in the sustainable materials category. Photo is courtesy of Vaarnii

Some of the 24,000 products on the Finnish Retail Shop website don’t have a rating, which means they haven’t yet been assessed or they do not meet sufficient sustainability standards.

Products that score poorly on the Product Sustainability Framework could eventually be removed from the portfolio.

“If some products or manufacturers do not meet our minimum sustainability criteria over time, we have the option to remove them from our selection,” Kiiski said.

However, the retailer believes this could also serve as an incentive.

“The PSF also serves as an incentive for further sustainability improvement, and we hope it signals to the whole industry that sustainability must be taken seriously, leaving no room for irresponsible actions anymore,” Kiiski added.

He is hopeful of the change that the Product Sustainability Framework will bring.

“The framework and its sustainability claims inform our suppliers about what can be expected from their sustainability practices today,” Kiiski said.

“Sustainability is a hot topic in our industry, but finding concrete data on it can still be a challenge,” he added. “The Product Sustainability Framework is our answer to this.”

“Essentially, it’s a 69-step list on how manufacturers can enhance their sustainability. The fact that over 110 manufacturers have participated so far indicates a need for concrete actions.”

Artek lamp
The A805 floor lamp by Artek reached full marks in the circular design category. Photo is courtesy of Artek

The Product Sustainability Framework is part of Finnish Design Shop’s sustainability strategy. Launched during Helsinki Design Week in September 2023, visitors had the opportunity to explore an installation explaining the framework (pictured, top) and its criteria through five sample products.

Last year, the retailer unveiled a logistics centre in a forest that was designed to enable “a more sustainable future”. It has previously provided the furniture for a pop-up restaurant in New York made from recycled packaging.

The photography is courtesy of the products’ manufacturers. Main image courtesy of Finnish Design Shop.

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Finnish Pavilion “declares the death of the flushing toilet”
CategoriesSustainable News

Finnish Pavilion “declares the death of the flushing toilet”

By Zarkon Group,

A Finnish huussi, or composting toilet, has been built in the centre of the country’s pavilion at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, which aims at critically exploring the world’s unsustainable approach to sanitation.

Declaring the “death of the flushing toilet as we know it” the pavilion, called Huussi – Imagining the Future History of Sanitation, was designed by The Dry Collective – a group of architects, designers and artists, and curated by Arja Renell.

Finnish Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023
The Finnish Pavilion is called Huussi – Imagining the Future History of Sanitation

The project is a response to the theme of the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale, The Laboratory of the Future, curated by Lesley Lokko and asking participants to consider what it means for architects to be “agents of change”.

Finland’s display begins with a mock archaeological excavation of a typical flushing toilet – responsible for 30 per cent of domestic water use in developed economies – in the grounds of the Alvar Aalto-designed pavilion, symbolically consigning it to the distant past.

Internal shot of the Finnish Pavilion by The Dry Collective
It explores the world’s unsustainable approach to sanitation

“We cannot live on a planet where billions of people use rapidly diminishing fresh water resources to flush their waste,” said curator Arja Renell.

“The whole system needs to change,” she continued. “A shift will come as we begin to see our waste as a valuable resource, and transition to treating it as such.”

Composting toilet surrounded by CLT panels
The pavilion features a composting toilet

Inside the pavilion, a cross-laminated timber (CLT) structure contains a domestic-scale huussi, surrounded by wooden planters that have been fertilised using human urine-based fertiliser.

While the huussi toilet cannot be used by visitors during the biennale, it will afterwards be donated to VERAS, a local non-profit organisation that owns an agricultural part and allotments on the nearby Venetian island of Vignole.

Accompanying the huussi is a fictional documentary film set in the year 2043 demonstrating the “absurdity” of our current attitude to sanitation and waste, along with other video works presenting information about alternative sanitation solutions.

“We want to share the domesticity and utility of the Finnish huussi to inspire a dialogue about the state of what is possible… what considerations become critical, and how will solutions vary in different parts of the world?” said Renell.

“Huussi inspires and invites all professionals to start looking for alternative solutions which would better serve the world we inhabit today,” she continued.

Screens showing a documentary film at the Finnish Pavilion
Accompanying the huussi is a fictional documentary film

The Finnish Pavilion is one of several that will be opened exclusively on Dezeen during the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023. Other pavilions that were seen first on Dezeen include the Danish pavilion, which focuses on rising Sea levels and the US pavilion that aims to question plastic dependency.

The photography is by Ugo Carmeni.

Dezeen is live reporting from the Venice Architecture Biennale, which takes place from 20 May to 26 November 2023. See Dezeen Events Guide for all the latest information you need to know to attend the event, as well as a list of other architecture and design events taking place around the world.

Reference

Finnish Design Shop creates forest-set logistics centre
CategoriesSustainable News

Finnish Design Shop creates forest-set logistics centre

By Zarkon Group,

Avanto Architects and Joanna Laajisto have designed a logistics centre for retailer Finnish Design Shop that features warm timber, a foraged-food restaurant for staff and visitors, and views of the surrounding forest.

Located on the outskirts of Turku, west of Helsinki, the logistics centre is the hub for storage, management and dispatch of products from the Finnish Design Shop, which says it is the world’s largest online store for Nordic design.

The company needed a new logistics centre after a period of high growth, but founder and CEO Teemu Kiiski also aimed for it to be a meaningful place for employees and visitors.

Photo of the exterior of the Finnish Design Shop logistics centre in Turku by Avanto Architects
The Finnish Design Shop logistics centre is located in the Pomponrahka nature reserve in Turku. Photo is by Kuvio

Employees of the logistics centre can enjoy plenty of light and forest views as well as warm timber environments and a restaurant run by Sami Tallberg, an award-winning chef who specialises in foraging.

The Finnish Design Shop had first explored whether it could convert an existing building in the Turku area, but, finding nothing suitable, chose to build on a site in the Pomponrahka nature reserve, where the surrounding forest would provide a calming work environment and reflect the appreciation for wood in Nordic design.

To undertake construction there responsibly, the Finnish Design Shop says the builders saved as many trees as possible and landscaped the area with natural forest undergrowth and stones excavated from the site.

Photo of the entrance interior to the Finnish Design Shop hub with light pouring through glass curtain walls and chairs displayed in shelves that reach high up the glazing
The entrance features glass curtain walls that connect the interior and exterior. Photo by Kuvio

Avanto Architects designed the 12,000-square-metre building to blend into the forest as much as possible — a challenge given its massing, a product of the warehouse layout.

The layout was created beforehand by specialist consultants to maximise the efficiency of operations, which are carried out by robots in an automated system.

Photo of a showroom featuring furniture by Nordic designers in pale woods and natural colours
The centre includes a showroom. Photo by Mikko Ryhänen

The architects opted for a dark facade with a vertical relief pattern that becomes visible on approach and echoes the tree trunks in the surrounding woodlands.

“The pattern forms a more human scale to the large facade surfaces,” Avanto Architects co-founder Anu Puustinen told Dezeen. “We also used warm wooden accents in the main entrance vestibule, balcony and windows.”

Photo of the wild food restaurant at the Finnish Design Shop hub in Turku
There is also a restaurant that specialises in foraged food. Photo by Mikko Ryhänen

The architects gave the office spaces large windows so the employees could enjoy frequent views of the forest and lots of light, and included a balcony for access to the outdoors on the first floor.

The entrance to the centre is through the showroom, which features glass curtain walls that showcase the use of the building and a long, straight staircase made from two massive glulam beams.

Photo showing views of a warehouse floor through large windows in an office corridor
The first-floor offices have a view of the warehouse floor. Photo by Kuvio

The interior was designed by Laajisto and her studio, who aimed to make the space feel well-proportioned and comfortable despite its size and to create a good acoustic environment by liberally applying sound-absorbing materials.

She kept the colour and material palette neutral and natural, with lots of solid pine and ash wood to continue the forest connection, but used furniture from the Finnish Design Shop in bright colours to punctuate the space.

“The aim was that every aspect in the interior should be done well and beautifully,” Laajisto told Dezeen. “Attention to detail was embraced in things that typically are overlooked, such as doors, plumbing fixtures and electrical hardware selections and applications, acoustic ceiling panels and ceramic tiles.”

The project is the first logistics building in Finland to be certified BREEAM Excellent, the second highest level.

Photo of an open office area with slatted pale wood room dividers and soft furnishings in neutral colours and turquoise
Special attention has been paid to creating a good acoustic environment with sound-dampening materials. Photo by Mikko Ryhänen

Kiiski, who positions the company as the opposite of multinational e-commerce players such as Amazon, aimed for the new centre to be the most socially and environmentally sustainable online store.

“The values that life in the Nordic countries is based on include transparency, equality and respect for nature,” said Kiiski. “It would have been impossible to create this company and our new logistics centre without unwavering respect for these values.”

Wood-panelled kitchen corner
Wood is featured throughout the interior

He believes that global online shopping can be socially and environmentally sustainable when issues in supply chains, logistics and operations are addressed.

“Many studies show that online shopping can have a lower carbon footprint as compared to in-store shopping,” said Kiiski. “This is due to the more efficient logistics in e-commerce and the fact that in-store shopping usually involves private transport.”

“We want to push the whole industry towards a more sustainable future,” he continued.

Photo of a timber-framed glass office door with warm light and a beige beanbag with throw rug in one corner
The hub is meant to offer employees a healthy and humane working environment. Photo by Mikko Ryhänen

Past work by Avanto Architects includes the Löyly waterfront sauna in Helsinki, which has a multifaceted exterior that visitors can climb, and the Villa Lumi, a house with a sculptural white staircase.

Laajisto’s previous projects include office interiors for service design company Fjord and the Airisto furniture collection for Made by Choice, which was inspired by Scandinavian holiday culture.

Reference

Finnish “sand battery” offers solution for renewable energy storage
CategoriesSustainable News

Finnish “sand battery” offers solution for renewable energy storage

By Zarkon Group,

Finnish companies Polar Night Energy and Vatajankoski have built the world’s first operational “sand battery”, which provides a low-cost and low-emissions way to store renewable energy.

The battery, which stores heat within a tank of sand, is installed at energy company Vatajankoski’s power plant in the town of Kankaanpää, where it is plugged into the local district heating network, servicing around 10,000 people.

The company behind the technology, Polar Night Energy, says it helps to solve one of the key obstacles in the transition to full renewable energy: how to store it for use during times when the sun isn’t shining or wind isn’t blowing, and particularly for use in the wintertime when demand is high.

Steel tank making up the Polar Night Energy sand battery in Finland
The Kankaanpää “sand battery” holds 100 tonnes of hot sand

“Solar and wind power is basically already really competitive in terms of energy price per produced energy unit,” Polar Night Energy co-founder and chief technology officer Markku Ylönen told Dezeen.

“The only problem with them is that you can’t really choose when it’s produced.”

He said that while lithium batteries are well suited for vehicles, “if we’re talking about gigawatt hours or terawatt hours of excess electricity, it’s not technically feasible to try to cover that with lithium batteries, and also the costs will be immense”.

“Even even if we dug out all the lithium in the world, we couldn’t build batteries big enough to accommodate all the fluctuation in renewable energy production,” Ylönen added.

Diagram showing excess energy from a wind turbine, tidal turbine and solar panel being stored as heat and sent to homes as heat for consumption
The battery stores excess renewable energy as heat that can later be sent to homes and businesses

Polar Night Energy’s sand battery stores heat for use weeks or even months later. It works by converting the captured renewable electricity into hot air by using an industrial version of a standard resistive heating element, then directing the hot air into the sand.

The heat transfers from the air to the sand, which ends up at temperatures of around 500 to 600 degrees Celsius and retains that heat well. To unlock it for use, the process is reversed and the hot air funnelled into a heating system used for homes or industry.

According to Ylönen, the process is low-cost – sand is inexpensive so the main costs are related to equipment and construction of the steel storage tank.

It is also low-impact, with the only substantial greenhouse gas emissions being embodied emissions from construction and the transport of sand, which should come from a location close to the battery site.

And although there is a sand shortage related to the material’s use in concrete and glass, Ylönen says the battery does not require this kind of fine-grain, high-quality sand.

Instead, they can use sand rejected by the construction industry, or even alternative “sand-like materials”, of which Polar Night Energy already has several contenders.

Excess sand from the building of the sand battery in Kankaanpää
The battery can be made with any type of sand from any location

The Kankaanpää battery is four metres in diameter, seven metres high and contains 100 tonnes of sand, but Polar Night Energy envisions future batteries being 20 metres across and 10 metres high.

This should give the battery one gigawatt hour of storage capacity, which is equivalent to one million kilowatt hours (kWh). The average UK home uses 1,000 kWh of gas and 240 kWh of electricity per month.

Several sand batteries of a standardised size could be placed around larger cities to service larger populations.

The sand battery would most likely only be used to provide heat and not electricity due to the inefficiency of the conversion process, but according to Ylönen, the world’s heating needs are great enough to justify having separate storage systems.

“The heating sector is something like one quarter or one third of the emissions of the world,” said Ylönen. “Along with the transportation and food industries, it’s among the largest sectors in terms of global warming.”

The urgency of transitioning to renewable energy has increased with the Ukraine war, which has led to spiralling energy costs and has revealed Europe’s dependence on Russian oil and gas.

Dezeen is on WeChat!

Click here to read the Chinese version of this article on Dezeen’s official WeChat account, where we publish daily architecture and design news and projects in Simplified Chinese.

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