Sustainability and the Furniture Industry: A Comprehensive Synthesis

Abstract

This paper presents a systematic review of the academic literature published until 2024 about sustainability and the furniture industry. Relevant publications were selected through keyword searches in Scopus and the Web of Science databases. One hundred and one publications were identified after having removed duplicates and other, non-peer-reviewed papers. A content analysis on the 101 identified publications allowed the classification of these papers into the following categories: “Sustainable Design” (21%), “Supply Chain Management” (14%), “Sustainability Strategies” (10%), and “Environmental Management” (9%) with the remaining publications (46%) being distributed among eleven other categories. To find out if the topic attracts more interest today than 10 or 20 years ago, the study also analyzed the distribution of publications by year. Investigations were also done by type of publications, countries, and focal points. Findings suggest that academic studies on sustainability in the furniture industry are still scattered and no coherent or continuous research stream has yet evolved. However, interest in the topic has been increasing lately.