Wood is used as a raw material in various industries, including the production of furniture, which puts pressure on the exploitation of the forests and the continuous reduction of their surfaces, with undesirable effects on the environment. The paper provides a way of sustainably manufacturing furniture by replacing wood with composite materials based on natural fibers obtained from fast-growing renewable crops (hemp, willow, flax, etc.) and at the same time a method of assessing the forest areas which can be saved from cutting. The method’s algorithm is based on the estimation of forest area that ensures the annual consumption of wood for the production of furniture, both in the conventional production of furniture and in the unconventional one, where part of the products is made of composites. The agricultural areas required to be cultivated with technical plants to provide the natural fibers necessary for the wood replacement composite were also determined. The case study, based on the data of an upholstered furniture company, shows that replacing only part of the wood for the production of furniture can save about 3000 hectares of beech forests per year and the necessary plant fibers can be obtained from a surface area about 10 to 100 times smaller.

The paper studies the possibility of using artificial neural networks (ANN) to determine certain mechanical properties of a new composite material. This new material is obtained by a mixture of hemp and polypropylene fibres. The material was developed for the industry of upholstered furniture. Specifically, it is intended for the making of elements of the support structure of some upholstered goods (chairs, armchairs, sofa sides) with the objective of replacing wood. The paper aims to calculate the following mechanical properties: maximum tensile strength and maximum elongation.