NEW! Astra’s Carbon Footprint Tracker™

This month, the Astra team is extremely excited about the launch of our very own unique ranking system – The Astra Carbon Footprint Tracker™!

This system assists with comparing the sustainability of each of our street furniture products and helps to calculate the carbon score of overall projects. Through working closely with our Australian manufacturers as well as conducting thorough research into industry obligations and information, our environmental specialist team have designed and formulated this system with the specific purpose to and bring about awareness of our ecological impacts and to make the lives of architects and councils easier!

This system is truly the first of its kind in the street furniture industry, and we can’t wait for you to see for yourself how it will positively impact your work and make it easier to prepare and present new projects!

So, how does this system actually work?

Once logged into our website, you will see these 6 blue symbols against each product, with each product having its own unique rank and score for each tracker category. Here’s a summary of what each symbol means and how to interpret the products score.  

	Australian Made This symbol is your guarantee that this product is designed and manufactured locally. Support for Australian Made products has recently surged, with research showing that more than 93% of Australians are more likely to buy a product that is made in Australia.
	Recycled Content Every product in the Astra Street Furniture range has a percentage of recycled content. The number in the centre of the triangle is the total percentage of all recycled content in this product. If you are looking for a product with high recycled content, then the higher the percentage, the better!
	Lifecyle Expectancy This is a conservative indication of the minimum expected life of the product. The longer a product is expected to last, the less material waste there will be as replacement products don’t need to be manufactured as often.
	Repurposing This symbol is an indication of whether there is a known alternative use for the product at the end of its design use life. ‘Re’ means that end of-life repurposing is expected to be possible. This is obviously a great benefit because the used product does not need to go direct to landfill, but can rather have another life with a different purpose!
	Carbon Star Ranking The amount of embodied carbon in a product is your tool towards calculating the carbon footprint of a project and any offsets that may be required to achieve a net-zero outcome. This star symbol is part of the Astra ranking system and indicates how one product compares to another. Five stars indicates the best rating with the least carbon content and 1 star indicates the highest carbon content.
	Carbon Content Score Embodied carbon or carbon content for a product is measured in kilograms of CO2 equivalent per kilogram of product mass. The number displayed on the symbol for each product shows the amount of embodied carbon in kilograms. This is to help calculate the carbon footprint of a project and any offsets that may be required to achieve a net-zero outcome. It should be understood that each carbon score is as accurate as possible at time of publishing, and is intended as a general guide due to reliable sources of accurate data not yet being available.

Throughout next year, we’ll be releasing further articles with greater detail on each tracker category. Keep an eye out for these articles on this blog page to help you get a further understanding of what the Astra Carbon Footprint Tracker means for you and your upcoming projects!