New Horizon Europe project will develop an AI-enabled Conversational PEF Copilot to make sustainability assessment more accessible and practical for the furniture and mattress sectors.
Athens, Greece – 15 September 2026 – The ECOPILOT project has officially launched, bringing together European expertise in sustainability assessment, artificial intelligence, sustainable materials, digital technologies and industry to support safer and more sustainable furniture and mattress design.
Funded under Horizon Europe, ECOPILOT is a 36-month Research and Innovation Action that will develop new tools, datasets and methodologies to help companies make more informed sustainability decisions from the earliest stages of product development. The project is coordinated by the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) and brings together 14 organisations from across Europe.
Making sustainability assessment easier to use
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an important methodology for evaluating the environmental impacts of products, materials and processes. However, its wider adoption remains limited by data gaps, methodological complexity and the lack of accessible digital tools, particularly for SMEs and organisations without specialised sustainability expertise.
ECOPILOT aims to address these barriers through its central innovation: a Conversational Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) Copilot tailored specifically to furniture and mattress products.
Instead of requiring users to work with several specialised tools independently, the Copilot will provide guided and conversational workflows that bring together environmental impact assessment, circularity modelling, uncertainty analysis and other advanced sustainability methods.
The goal is to make sustainability assessment more transparent, practical and accessible, enabling SMEs, designers and innovators to better understand the environmental implications of their choices and support eco-design and material substitution decisions.
From data gaps to better design decisions
A key part of the project will focus on addressing missing sustainability data for new and emerging materials.
ECOPILOT will develop PEF-aligned, FAIR-oriented Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) datasets and explore predictive approaches that can help fill critical data gaps when complete sustainability information is not yet available. Its work will also integrate advanced methods such as dynamic inventories, circularity modelling, uncertainty analysis and Planetary Boundaries into the Copilot.
The project will validate its approach in the furniture and mattress sectors, focusing on applications where safer and more sustainable material alternatives are increasingly important. These include coatings for wood and metal components, furniture adhesives, and flame retardants used in textiles and foams.
ECOPILOT will also incorporate Social Life Cycle Assessment and Life Cycle Costing, supporting a broader understanding of sustainability that considers environmental, social and economic dimensions.
By the end of the project, ECOPILOT aims to reach Technology Readiness Level 6 (TRL 6), demonstrating demonstrating the project’s technologies in relevant environments.
The ECOPILOT journey begins
The consortium officially came together for the project’s Kick-Off Meeting on 2 July 2026 in Athens, Greece, marking the beginning of its collaborative work.
Partners aligned on ECOPILOT’s objectives, technical activities and implementation priorities, laying the foundations for the development of the project’s tools, datasets and methodologies.
During the coming months, the consortium will focus on stakeholder and policy requirements, the data landscape, system architecture and the first technical components of the ECOPILOT solution. SMEs, industry representatives, researchers and policymakers will also be engaged through workshops, training and feedback activities to help ensure that project results respond to real-world needs.
Through this combination of research, digital innovation and industry collaboration, ECOPILOT aims to bridge the gap between complex sustainability science and practical product design, giving companies more accessible and reliable tools to make safer and more sustainable design decisions.
About ECOPILOT
ECOPILOT – A Conversational PEF Copilot for Safe-and-Sustainable Furniture & Mattresses: From Data Gaps to Design Decisions is a 36-month Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Action coordinated by the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). The project brings together 14 organisations from across Europe to develop accessible, data-driven tools and methodologies supporting safer and more sustainable product design in the furniture and mattress sectors.