For a long time NC has had the ambition to label its whole product range with the Swedish sustainability certificate Möbelfakta. And out of all Swedish furniture producers NC is since 2013 the company that has the most number of products with the Möbelfakta label. Today 75% of all products have the label.

Möbelfakta is the only certificate that focuses on quality, the environment and social responsibility. It is the broad focus that is the strength of Möbelfakta. There are other certificates that focus on the environment, but we also want to make sure that the people who produce the product have descent working conditions. Möbelfakta ensures an active work to prevent and secure descent conditions in the supply chain.

All brands in the Kinnarps Group in the top 10

From NC’s perspective it is great to see that all the brands in the Kinnarps Group (Kinnarps, Materia, NC and Skandiform) are represented in the top 10 list of the number of Möbelfakta labelled products in the assortment. It is a result of the group’s high ambitions concerning sustainability, where Möbelfakta has a big focus.

• 77 Möbelfakta labelled products, NC Nordic Care
• 65, Lammhults Möbel
• 40, Johanson Design
• 39, Edsbyverken
• 37, Stolab
• 34, Kinnarps
• 32, Skandiform
• 30, Swedese
• 29, Gärsnäs
• 25, Materia

*Statistics from 2017-12-22

Why not the whole assortment?

The target is that all of NC’s furniture should be labelled with Möbelfakta. That is however easier said than done and there can be different reasons why all the furniture do not yet have the Möbelfakta label. NC works with several different suppliers and they all have different prerequisites to meet the standards. It is our ambition to always work with suppliers that meet our set environmental standards, but the number of suppliers is not unlimited.

Challenges to meet the Möbelfakta standards:

• Water lacquer is needed to meet the environmental standards. Traditional oil based lacquers contain too many hazardous substances. However water lacquer requires larger premises than traditional oil based lacquer du to longer drying time. Investments in other kind of equipment are also needed.
• Sometimes it can be difficult to find out if the materials used in the furniture meet the environmental standards. Even though NC is an important company in the Swedish furniture industry we may still be relatively small for a global plywood supplier, which could make our issues and demands a low priority for that supplier.
• Some products may not pass the quality test in the laboratory at the first try. If this happens we then need to strengthen the construction of the product. This happens predominately to older products that were launched before Möbelfakta became such a focus for NC. Nowadays a product by NC has to pass the quality test before it is being launched and is ready to order.
• NS’s product range consists of more than 100 products and it takes a lot of time to go through and test all products.

The journey continues

NC has come a long way with 75% of all products in the assortment labelled with the Möbelfakta tag. But we are not happy until every single product in the NC assortment has the Möbelfakta label.

Tomas Reibring
Quality and Environmental Coordinator