The Circular Furniture Production Center (CFPC) which will be located in Pévèle Carembault (Northern France), will host a training center on upcycling furniture techniques and a circular library for the furniture industry. The CFPC will also welcome start-ups on circular furniture and offer automative machines to massify upcycling furniture. The CFPC will take place in a 1800m² facility within a 17 hectares rehabilitated brownfield dedicated to environmental performance. The CFPC will be one of the 1st building to be rehabilitated.
The CFPC should be ready to start by mid-2026 which fits with the end of CEO project. In this context and for a rural local authority as Pévèle Carembault, CEO is fundamental as all the ideas, concepts and learnings coming from CEO activities are meant to be put into practice with the creation of the Circular Furniture Production Center to ensure the legacy of CEO project and create a massive circular furniture production ecosystem.
The rehabilitation building that shall host the facility is about to start with the architect choice in 2024. The Copenhaguen Municipality’s experience (Denmark) in running a facility for second hand furniture will help better plan the internal organization of the CFPC and will bring light on Pevele Carembault’s better options.
While focusing on the rehabilitation, the work on Circular Business Models for the furniture industry which is being worked on both by INDEED Innovation in Hamburg (Germany) and by Circular Flanders (Belgium) will help settle the economic model of the future Circular Furniture Production Center. The insight provided by CEO partners will strengthen the strategic choices Northern France stakeholders will have to do in 2025 for the future Center.
The eco-design guide developed by WOOD.BE (Belgium) as the learnings from ALLVIEW project will serve as the technical basis for the trainings which will be delivered by FCBA (France) in Pévèle Carembault from 2024 to 2026. FCBA trainings will be half theoretical learnings and half practical learnings in order to fit with professionals expectations : work on machines, try out of recycled materials, traditional assembly techniques, etc. Learnings from CEO training sessions will be gathered in a future Circular Furniture School Book which will be the core of professional training in the CFPC.
The experience from East Nederlands / Enschede TextileStad along with the exchanges with FCBA who already run material libraries will help gather the 1st approved circular materials or fabrics for upcycling furniture. In the future, this partnership will be worthful to update the library on the long run.
The pilot has been launched on October 19th, 2023 with a workshop with furniture manufacturers, public & private buyers and interior designers: All participants showed a high interest in the CEO project. The experiences shortly related from HiiCE (Germany), Utrecht (Netherlands), Circular Flanders (Belgium) and Malmö (Sweden) on circular procurement gave a lot of ideas to Northern France participants. While going on CEO sharing on procurement, the stakeholders get ready and future demand for a Circular Furniture Production Center seems to be on its way.
Thanks to CEO network, the objective by the end of the project will be to spread the idea, discuss the interest of such a Circular Furniture Production Center in different contexts, and see if a network of training centers on circular furniture can emerge in the North Sea Region.
It could just be a CEO game changer !