This month, the Astra team is extremely excited about the launch of its unique ranking system – the Astra Carbon Footprint Tracker™.

With architects and councils in mind, this system assists with comparing the sustainability of each Astra street furniture product and  calculates the overall carbon score of projects. 

This system is truly the first of its kind in the street furniture industry – positively impacting your work and cutting down the hack work in preparing and presenting new projects.

So, how does this system actually work?

Once logged into the Astra website, you will see six 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 a product's 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. 

Lifecyle Expectancy

This is a conservative indication of the minimum expected life of the product. 

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.

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 one 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, Astra will 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.