The Working Groups (or WGs), led by Ecomaison, bring together manufacturers, distributors, researchers, regenerators, and end-of-life experts around a common goal: to transform industrial practices in order to reduce the environmental impact of products placed on the market.
In 2025, the Ecomaison teams continued or initiated three working groups on key themes: the eco-design of upholstered products, the reincorporation of recycled plastic, and extending the useful life of products. These WGs are working in parallel to collectively address technical issues that are often complex but crucial for the industry. Today, we look back at their objectives, progress, and initial results.
The “Eco-design of upholstered products” working group:
Laure Bisson, Textile Expert, Technical & Innovation Department
Upholstered furniture is made up of many different materials (textiles, foam, wood or metal structures, etc.) that are assembled in a complex manner. This creates major technical and operational obstacles and makes it particularly difficult to dismantle, repair, or recycle. As a result, the end of life of these products is currently limited largely to energy recovery.
Following Innovation Days 2024, and in light of this shared observation, a dedicated working group was launched, led by Laure Bisson, Head of Innovation at Ecomaison. Its objective: to gain a concrete understanding of the barriers to the repair and recycling of upholstered products in order to lay the foundations for a more virtuous industry, through eco-design and progress made by the eco-organization on end-of-life products. Since fall 2024, four working sessions have been organized with participants such as Adova, Cofel, Camif, Fermob, Ligne Roset, Tediber, as well as distributors BUT and Conforama.
After an initial phase devoted to raising awareness among stakeholders about current issues, the following sessions focused on the levers that can be activated to improve the recyclability and repairability of upholstered products:
- Several interventions provided keys to progressing on repairability: use and development of an ad hoc assessment tool, sale of spare parts, workshops, and repair activities.
- Concrete dismantling experiments on representative products —convertibles, wooden structures, and upholstered bed bases—made it possible to assess the feasibility of dismantling for repair or recycling, as well as the quality of the recovered materials.
- Brainstorming sessions and workshops on new assemblies have led to designs that simplify disassembly and maintenance while maintaining performance and aesthetics.
The tests carried out therefore open up the possibility of reconsidering the recyclability of products, provided that appropriate end-of-life treatments are implemented according to the nature of the materials. In concrete terms, following the working group's findings, new recycling channels dedicated to sofa seat cushions for foam and bed bases for wood will be trialed over the next six months. In addition, the group has identified priority areas for eco-design, depending on the product, and has come up with a list of ideas for simplified assemblies, illustrated and developed in collaboration with designers, to be discussed within companies or with their suppliers. All of these avenues offer concrete potential for progress in the sector!
The "Recycling Plastics "Working Group : an exemplary collaboration to qualify competitive recycled resins
Gwendal Michel, plastics expert, Technical & Innovation Department
The Plastics Working Group, led by Gwendal Michel, is tackling a major challenge: developing the use of plastics from Ecomaison post-consumer sources in the production of regenerated resin formulations for our members. Our sources are rich in various resins such as PP, PE, ABS, PS, and PVC, from a variety of origins and in a wide range of colors (color mix). The objective is to produce regenerated resins from sorted fractions of these resins, which must meet the production specifications of our marketers to integrate recycled resins to replace virgin or post-production resins. Ecomaison has worked in particular with Smoby, a French toy manufacturer committed to the integration of recycled materials. Polypropylene (PP), which is widely used in its products, was the priority for the working group. The main challenge was to produce a regenerated PP resin from the furniture waste stream that complies with the requirements of the EN 71 toy standard, as well as SMOBY's own technical requirements, without forgetting the important aesthetic and color considerations.
To achieve this, the working group carried out complex technical work, combining sorting of flows, including color sorting of the "white" portion of the mixed-color waste stream, and the development of PP formulations on a laboratory and then industrial scale at Plastiloop (Veolia). These mass-colored formulations must meet all of SMOBY's specifications. These materials were then tested to verify their processability, mechanical performance, and compliance with chemical and regulatory requirements. Color consistency is also a crucial aspect of the project. The tests, working methods, and development of dedicated chemical analyses have made it possible to define a test architecture that can be applied to other projects.
Despite the constraints associated with the source material (mix of colors, heterogeneous flows), the working group produced a case study to demonstrate the industrial and regulatory feasibility of incorporating recycled resins into toys, with the aim of helping to integrate post-consumer resins into industrial production, but also to support the activities of companies involved in the collection, sorting, and regeneration of plastics, which, thanks to their technical and technological advances, can meet the challenges of decarbonization and circularity.-consumption resins into industrial production, but also to support the activities of the plastic collection, sorting, and regeneration industries, which, thanks to their technical and technological advances, can meet the decarbonization challenges facing our industries.
Extending product life: embedding circularity in economic models
The "Extending Product Life" working group, led by Benoît Godon, was launched in June 2025 during Innovation Days. The aim is to explore new circular economic models such as the functional economy, rental, reuse, and repair in order to increase product usage and the number of users.
After an initial session dedicated to the ecosystems needed to implement these circular services, the second session in November explored the concept of the functional economy and the provision of products on a subscription basis.
In 2026, Ecomaison will stimulate the creation of a pilot project around the functional economy and two new collective working sessions on second-hand goods and repairs.
A shared ambition: working together to build the solutions of tomorrow
Although their themes differ, the three working groups share the same approach: experimenting, comparing practices, and collectively developing concrete solutions. Whether it involves rethinking upholstered furniture, classifying plastic resins, or structuring new economic models, this work enables ideas to be transformed into actions and sustainable, circular industries to be developed.
Finally, participants in the working groups emphasized the importance of collective work between manufacturers, distributors, suppliers, and Ecomaison. Addressing each party's constraints—commercial requirements, production costs, end-of-life issues—is essential for progress. Moving away from siloed work is the only way to remain competitive and accelerate the transition to truly circular models.