CEO Project | European Union
Mapping the system. Measuring progress. Enabling circular transformation.
The office furniture industry is built around a complex network of products, people, businesses and services. To make that system circular, it is not enough to redesign individual products. The relationships between design, procurement, use, maintenance, logistics, refurbishment and end-of-use need to change as well.
The Circular Economy Office (CEO) project, an EU-funded initiative under the Interreg North Sea Region programme, brought together 13 partners across six countries to accelerate this transformation across the North Sea Region.
As an expert partner in system mapping, stakeholder mapping and human behaviour, INDEED Innovation helped translate this complexity into practical tools for action
A network built for systemic change
Circular transformation cannot be solved by one company, one product or one discipline.
The CEO consortium brought together municipalities and public organisations, circular economy specialists, research and technical institutes, furniture experts, refurbishers and industry SMEs. Together, the partners represented knowledge and influence across the office furniture value chain.
Public sector & regional partners
- Municipality of Copenhagen
- City of Utrecht & City of Malmö
- Communauté de Communes Pévèle Carembault
- Development Agency Oost-Nederland
Industry & circular value-chain partners
- De Kringwinkel Antwerpen
- ONBETAALBAAR
- Enschede Textielstad Innovatie
Circular economy & expert partners
- INDEED Innovation
- Public Waste Agency of Flanders / Circular Flanders
- WOOD.BE
- Institut Technologique FCBA
Project lead
- HiiCCE — Hamburg Institute for Innovation, Climate Protection and Circular Economy
Working within this network meant navigating different stakeholders, responsibilities, perspectives and levels of circular maturity, and finding ways to connect them around a shared system.
Heiko Tullney, Co-Founder and Executive Director of INDEED Innovation
The consortium connected perspectives from Germany, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium and France, spanning public procurement, design, materials, furniture production, reuse, refurbishment and circular business models.
INDEED’s role
Within this diverse network, INDEED contributed its expertise in system mapping, stakeholder mapping and human behaviour, helping make the relationships within the office furniture ecosystem visible and creating practical ways to assess progress.
The Challenge
Circularity is a system problem. A piece of furniture can be designed for longevity, repair or reuse. But whether those principles actually work depends on everything around it, from procurement and maintenance to logistics, take-back and second-life solutions.
The sector brings together a wide range of actors: designers and manufacturers, brands and distributors, businesses and employees, facility managers, logistics providers, refurbishers, recyclers and service providers.
“Building circularity in the furniture industry is not just a technical exercise. It is a strategic transformation requiring measurement, collaboration, and innovation at every step.”
Heiko Tullney, Co-Founder and Executive Director of INDEED Innovation
Each plays a role in determining what happens to furniture next.
This creates a fundamental challenge:
How do you understand where circular opportunities exist when the system itself is fragmented across so many actors, decisions and stages?
At the same time, organisations need a practical way to understand their own progress. Circularity can involve everything from repairability and material choices to procurement, business models, maintenance and end-of-use. Without a common framework, it is difficult to understand where an organisation stands, or where to focus next.
The challenge was therefore twofold:
| SYSTEM LEVEL | ORGANISATIONAL LEVEL |
|---|---|
| Make the complex furniture ecosystem visible | Make circular progress measurable |
| Understand actors, relationships and dependencies | Understand current maturity and gaps |
| Identify opportunities for intervention | Identify relevant next steps |
Our approach
1. Making the system visible
INDEED developed the Office Furniture Ecosystem Map to show how office furniture moves through its full lifecycle, from design and material sourcing to production, distribution, use, maintenance, collection and end-of-use.
Rather than treating these stages in isolation, the map makes the relationships and dependencies between stakeholders visible. It connects furniture brands and manufacturers with designers, retailers, corporate customers, logistics providers, collection services, second-hand sellers, circular service providers and recycling facilities.
This reveals where circular strategies can keep value in the system for longer. Reuse, repair, refurbishment, redesign and remanufacturing preserve more product value than moving directly towards recycling or disposal.
2. Making circularity measurable
Circular Maturity Indicator
A system view shows where change can happen. The next question is: where should an organisation start?
Together with CEO project partners, INDEED developed the Circular Maturity Indicator (CMI), a practical self-assessment for both furniture providers and users.
For providers, the CMI assesses areas including:
- durability, repairability and disassembly
- recycled, renewable and refurbished materials
- circular business models
- product traceability and Digital Product Passports
- supplier responsibility
- maintenance and customer support
- take-back and end-of-use management
For users, it also addresses office-space adaptability, furniture utilisation, maintenance, inventory management and circular procurement.
The assessment uses a graded scoring system rather than a simple yes/no checklist. Organisations receive a maturity level that helps them understand their current position and identify relevant areas for development.
Circular transformation is not a binary state. Organisations start from different positions and need different pathways to move forward. The CMI therefore supports organisations at different stages of their circular journey.
Eunji Park, Executive Director & Project Lead
The framework was informed by EU circularity regulations, ISO 14001, DIN SPEC 68008, interviews with nine CEO project partners and interviews with four furniture-industry players.
Take a deeper look at the framework, assessment methodology, and maturity levels developed for the office furniture sector.
03. Turning insight into action
The two tools connect system-level understanding with organisational action.
The Ecosystem Map shows how the wider value chain works and where dependencies or barriers can prevent circular loops from functioning.
The CMI then helps an organisation assess its own practices and identify where to focus next. Its five maturity levels recognise that organisations begin from different positions and therefore need different pathways forward.
This reflects a central lesson from the CEO project: circular transformation is not a single intervention. It depends on the conditions around it, policy, procurement, people, skills and collaboration.
Results & impact
System visibility
The Office Furniture Ecosystem Map makes the actors, relationships and dependencies shaping the furniture lifecycle visible.
Measurable progress
The Circular Maturity Indicator provides a structured framework for assessing circular practices and understanding organisational maturity.
A shared basis for action
Together, the tools connect the system level with the organisational level, providing a common basis for understanding where circular opportunities exist and where organisations can develop further.
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