SUSTAINABILITY 091
Left A collaboration area features lots of greenery to create an open plan space focused on staff wellbeing
consultant or partner. Unfortunately, these avenues are currently a costly way to ascertain the sustainability credentials of a project and can often discourage clients from working towards more sustainable offices. When stepping back and looking at the issue holistically, our design studio made the conscious decision to not let this deter our ambitions to be more sustainable. With this this in mind, we recently went through a major revamp of our materials library. We created a database of sorts to guide and filter our choices going forward. As an interior design and build company, it is imperative that we dig into every aspect of what we do, and so we have spent a year of our time analysing how we design and how we make material choices. To achieve this, we met with various suppliers, contractors and other members of our supply chain to find out what actions they are taking to drive change. Our culture as a company is to find ways to improve ourselves and to work with our contractors and suppliers to help find a way to do so together. We have a responsibility as designers to make those changes. We also have a responsibility to make our clients aware of the choices they can make to ensure a better, more sustainable project in the end.
‘By making wise choices and
encouraging clients and contractors to do the same, we are taking one step closer to a more sustainable world’
Many clients are attuned to sustainability as a business priority, but what role should architects and developers be playing in guiding or encouraging other clients about the importance of carbon neutral choices within a project?
We believe as a company we need to drive change. As an office design and fit-out company we are all too aware of the lifespan of interior office spaces and the waste that goes alongside. By making wise choices and encouraging clients and contractors to do the same, we are taking one step closer to a more sustainable world. We are also investing internally on training and educating, not only for the design team, but also for team members such as project leads and workplace strategists that have first contact with clients. It is vital to get the sustainability conversation started as early as possible in the process.
What are some of the biggest obstacles you face in delivering the most sustainable projects possible, and what could be done to make it easier to deliver a more sustainable end result?
During our year of introspection, we found the biggest hurdle to making sustainable materials choices to be the lack of transparency or authenticity from some suppliers and manufacturers. Tis has been a major factor in our decision to curate our sample library and to make forward- thinking choices when it comes to what we stock and cost. We have implemented ‘sustainability-first’ strategies within our design team workflows to encourage this mindset. We have aligned our sample library accordingly and will continue to do so going forward. Te journey is just starting and we have a long way to go as an industry.
Has the pandemic created an opportunity for businesses to ‘reset’ their approach to carbon neutrality, or has the cost of lockdown made it more difficult to achieve the investment necessary for long-term sustainability initiatives?
Supported by:
We have seen companies drastically change their approach to office fit-outs to be geared toward user experience. As employees have spent the better part of a year working from home, they are now looking forward to spending time with people in healthy environments. Healthy environments are a wonderful by-product of designing with a sustainability-first mindset.
interaction.uk.com
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