Crafting Furniture in the Global South: Renewable by Origin, Unsustainable by Design: Bio-based Plastics and Furniture from Brazil

Crafting Furniture in the Global South: Contemporary Practices, Histories and Futures

22 October, 2026 -

Faced with skyrocketing demand for plastics, the search for more sustainable solutions has produced a plethora of new materials promising to solve one of the world's most pressing environmental challenges (International Energy Agency). Among these is Braskem's I'm Green™ polyethylene, a bio-based plastic manufactured from Brazilian sugarcane ethanol rather than fossil fuels (Braskem). Marketed as a renewable, "carbon-negative" polymer, it has become a flagship example of how renewable feedstocks might decarbonise plastics. But does replacing fossil carbon with plant-based carbon automatically produce a more sustainable product?

My recent research suggests the answer is more complicated. By comparing two mass-produced Brazilian chairs manufactured by Tramontina in collaboration with Braskem, I found that focusing on where a plastic comes from can distract from the much larger question of how products are designed, manufactured, used and ultimately disposed of. The results challenge the growing tendency to treat bio-based plastics as a sustainability shortcut.

The appeal of renewable plastics

Braskem, the largest petrochemical company in South America and headquartered in São Paulo, Brazil, launched I'm Green™ polyethylene in 2011, as a renewable alternative to conventional polyethylene. Rather than using oil or natural gas, the polymer is produced from ethanol derived from Brazilian sugarcane. Because sugarcane absorbs atmospheric carbon dioxide as it grows, Braskem argues that this carbon uptake offsets emissions generated during production, resulting in a strongly favourable carbon footprint (Braskem 2).

Unlike many experimental bioplastics, I'm Green is not biodegradable. Instead, it is chemically identical to conventional polyethylene. This gives the material a unique advantage, as it can be processed using existing manufacturing equipment and recycled alongside standard polyethylene using exactly the same processes. This ‘drop-in’ compatibility has helped the material gain widespread commercial adoption across packaging, consumer products, footwear and furniture. From a manufacturing perspective, this represents a genuine technological achievement.

Looking beyond the material

However, sustainability cannot be evaluated by examining materials in isolation. To investigate how renewable plastics perform once they become products, I conducted comparative life cycle assessments of two Brazilian chairs produced by Tramontina (Isaac).

The first was the Jet Chair (see fig. 1), manufactured using Braskem's bio-based polyethylene. The second was the Sissi Chair, manufactured from post-consumer recycled polypropylene. Both were compared with equivalent versions produced using conventional virgin plastics.

The results initially appear to support the promise of bio-based plastics. Replacing virgin polyethylene with bio-based polyethylene reduced cradle-to-gate greenhouse gas emissions for the Jet chair by approximately 9 kg CO₂e per chair. Most of this reduction occurred during polymer production, confirming that renewable feedstocks can significantly reduce manufacturing emissions. If analysis stopped at the factory gate, the story would be simple: renewable plastic wins. Unfortunately, products do not stop existing once they leave the factory.

End-of-life changes the picture

Every product eventually reaches the end of its useful life. Whether it is recycled, landfilled or incinerated substantially affects its overall environmental performance. Bio-based polyethylene behaves much like conventional polyethylene once discarded. It does not biodegrade, meaning its environmental impacts remain strongly influenced by waste management systems.

When realistic end-of-life scenarios are included, the Jet chair's impressive manufacturing advantage becomes much smaller. Although the bio-based version consistently performs better than its fossil equivalent, the headline "carbon-negative" narrative becomes highly dependent upon what eventually happens to the chair.

This illustrates an important weakness in many sustainability claims. Carbon stored temporarily within a product is only environmentally beneficial if products remain in use for long periods, or are effectively recovered through functioning circular systems.

Less plastic often beats greener plastic

Perhaps the most interesting finding emerged when the bio-based chair was compared with the recycled plastic chair. The Sissi Chair, manufactured from recycled polypropylene, generated substantially lower life-cycle emissions across every disposal scenario despite using a conventional recycled polymer, rather than an innovative renewable material. Why? The answer is surprisingly straightforward. The recycled chair simply uses much less material.

Across all scenarios, the lighter chair (Sissi weighs just 2.8kg compared with 5.8kg for the Jet) produced between two- and four-times lower emissions than the heavier bio-based alternative. Material quantity proved more influential than feedstock choice. In other words, reducing material use often delivers greater environmental benefits than simply replacing fossil feedstocks with renewable ones. For designers concerned about sustainability, this reinforces a long-standing, but often ignored, sustainability principle: dematerialisation remains the most powerful design strategy available.

The importance of systems

Braskem's bio-based polyethylene is frequently presented as an environmentally progressive material. Yet the system supporting its production originated not as a climate policy but as Brazil's response to the oil crises of the 1970s. Massive government investment in sugarcane ethanol infrastructure to develop biofuels created the industrial foundation that later enabled bio-based plastics to emerge.

Understanding this history reminds us that materials do not exist independently of the economic, political and social systems that produce them.

Similarly, waste infrastructure determines whether supposedly circular products ever become circular. Brazil currently recycles only a relatively small proportion of its plastic waste, while significant quantities continue to be landfilled, incinerated or mismanaged (Lino et al.). Under these conditions, designing products for circularity is only part of the solution; functioning collection, recycling and recovery systems are equally essential.

Moving beyond marketing narratives

Too often, sustainability marketing focuses on a single material innovation while ignoring the wider product system. Bio and bio-based plastics play a role in reducing our dependence on fossil resources. More readily available recycled plastics can play a significant role in reducing demand for virgin material. But none of these materials automatically guarantees a sustainable product.

Whole-life environmental performance depends upon numerous interacting factors: material intensity, manufacturing energy, product longevity, repairability, collection systems and realistic end-of-life pathways. Feedstock origin is only one part of that much larger picture (OECD, UNEP).

Designers therefore need to move beyond asking What is this product made from? A more useful question is:

What environmental outcomes does this product actually produce across its entire life?

Only by facing the challenge of evaluating complete product systems can sustainability claims move beyond compelling marketing stories and become evidence-based assessments of environmental performance. Ultimately, sustainability should be measured by environmental outcomes, not by the origin story attached to a polymer.

 

Geoff Isaac is a Research Fellow at the University of Technology Sydney and casual academic at the Australian National University. His doctoral research examined the plastic chair's eighty-year history and contemporary sustainable transitions, published as Rethinking Plastics in Product Design: A Guide to Sustainable Transitions for the Environmental Emergency (Bloomsbury, 2025). Isaac’s first monograph, tracking the career of Australian mid-century industrial designer Grant Featherson was published by Thames and Hudson in 2017. His research interests include design history, material culture, environmental humanities, and the social and ecological implications of plastics.

 

Bibliography

Braskem. (2024). I'm Green™ Bio-Based Polyethylene. https://www.braskem.com.br

Braskem. Carbon Footprint. https://www.braskem.com.br/imgreen/carbon-footprint. Accessed 3 Aug. 2026.

Isaac, Geoff. Rethinking Plastics in Product Design: A Guide to Sustainable Transitions for the Environmental Emergency. Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2025.

International Energy Agency. The Future of Petrochemicals – Analysis. 2018, https://www.iea.org/reports/the-future-of-petrochemicals.

Lino, Fátima A. M., et al. “Municipal Solid Waste Treatment in Brazil: A Comprehensive Review.” Energy Nexus, vol. 11, Sept. 2023, p. 100232. ScienceDirect, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nexus.2023.100232.

OECD. “Global Plastics Outlook: Policy Scenarios to 2060.” OECD, OECD Publishing, 21 June 2022, https://doi.org/10.1787/aa1edf33-en.

UNEP, “Turning off the Tap: How the World Can End Plastic Pollution and Create a Circular Economy.” 5 Feb. 2023, http://www.unep.org/resources/turning-off-tap-end-plastic-pollution-create-circular-economy.