EcoDesign Principles

We are delighted to present our Guide to Ecodesign Principles specifically for the UK bed sector. We are proud to make this Guide openly and freely available to all. Ecodesign is a key element of government thinking, part of a global move towards greener economies in future, so it’s right and proper that we should support and encourage our industry to understand what that means and embrace the opportunities it presents.

There is a large, often academic body of work out there all about ecodesign. What we have tried to do is to distil that into a framework that is directly and practically applicable to the bed sector.

Taking as its starting point a definition of the ecodesigned bed or mattress as one that achieves lower environmental impacts throughout its life cycle without compromising fitness for use, the guide aims to identify products, services and practices that constitute good ecodesign and which individual companies can then interpret, depending on their respective business models and customer base.

The guide describes 10 key ecodesign principles, organised into three categories: people and relationships; products and services; and processes. Having briefly described each principle and explained why it is important, some practical advice on how the principle might be interpreted follows.

The guide also presents a ‘Red List’ of practices which need to be avoided, covering compliance requirements and recommendations for an ecodesign approach to mattress and bed products. Useful lists of commonly available tools for quantifying the environmental impact of products and links to free, general-purpose training materials for ecodesign and life cycle thinking complete the guide.