Introducing the SFC Dashboard and the Eco-Insight Assessment
It takes a lot to build an impactful website (and transferring a 15-year database, we won't lie)! With the launch of the new SFC brand and the new website a year ago, we've rolled out additional tools and benefits for SFC members in 2024. The online membership form has been updated for an easier user experience. Companies are now able to pay dues online and renew memberships. The Quick Buying Guide has been updated. We've written many "Sustainable Stories", the blog page that offers in-depth information about SFC's initiatives with a personal touch, like this article you're reading now. We appreciate our back-end team for all the work completed so far.
In December, we held our first Working Group on two new benefits: the Member Dashboard and the Eco-Insight Assessment Tool.
The Member Dashboard
The Eco-Insight Assessment
The team at SFC has developed a tool to enhance transparency, accountability, and continuous improvement for our members. Since 2009, companies joining SFC have committed to sustainability best practices. As sustainability has become a more widely accepted form of 'doing business', driven by climate change (aka the climate crisis), consumers, including designers and buyers, in the home furnishings industry have become savvier and more discerning and knowledgeable about vendors and store brands. For example, both designers and consumers are looking more closely at materials and researching companies' ethos, including third-party certifications for both products and materials. In response to this growing demand and awareness, and in alignment with the SFC mission, we have introduced the Home Furnishings Eco-Insight Assessment.
SFC Members have the opportunity to take the assessment, accessed through the dashboard, and the results will be displayed privately on your dashboard. The results will show how a company has scored in the areas of the Sustainability Six: Carbon, Health, Water, Social, Waste, and Circularity.
More about the EIA
The Home Furnishings Eco-Insight Assessment Tool (or the "EIA") is a series of 76 questions divided into the six categories. Companies will answer and a score will be given, displayed in the form of a pie chart, with colors and shading to show the score for each section. As targets and goals are set and achieved, the scores will hopefully improve once a company retests. We suggest retesting every 6 months or annually in order to see your improvement.
This assessment tool also affirms a company's certifications - business certifications (i.e. B-Corp or LEED), products or factories (i.e. Fair Trade, HIGG), or materials (i.e. GOTS, FSC®). In some cases, you are able to upload certificates or license numbers. These certifications are also listed on a member's profile page, once you complete that section on the dashboard.
SFC does not certify companies, products, or materials; therefore, the EIA is not a certification or verification. Instead, the assessment serves as a tool to establish benchmarks and guide progress towards achieving goals and targets.
Here is an image of three Eco-Insight Assessment graphs (using a demo company):
How the EIA was Created
Over the years, we have refined SFC best practices and tools to align more closely with ESG reporting and other benchmarks and certifications that outline intentional sustainable objectives for companies. Going a step further, we convened an advisory committee of select expert SFC members to create the questionnaire and assessment. Each question was vetted in accordance with standards and goals within the home furnishings industry in regard to sustainable best practices.
We believe the EIA will further advance the mission of the Sustainable Furnishings Council, which was updated in 2022 after strategic planning for the growth and health of the organization. "We believe this tool will be an asset for the suppliers, manufacturers, retails, and designers who we serve," says Scarlette Tapp, SFC's Executive Director. The mission statement reads in part:
"The information, education and tools hosted by our council will bring transparency, literacy and action to reduce our industry’s impact on the environment and human health."
Our team is here to make this an integral part of SFC membership and to make it easy to access. If you are ready to start using the Eco-Insight Assessment, reach out to us for your member login. For training purposes, we plan to schedule quarterly working groups on this topic.
For more information and to register for working groups, see the SFC events page.