How Can Interior Designers Help With Sustainability?
A letter to the interior design community.
Dear Interior Designers,
When I first graduated college and was starting my interior design career, I was learning about LEED, sustainability, and what being “green” meant. While I was learning, I made the mistake of assuming that our clients were aware of this too. I assumed that clients would come to us and ask for green materials for their projects! What I later learned was that our clients are not always aware of this and as designers we need to be the ones to educate our clients.
In the last several years sustainability has become an even bigger push. There are companies that have been on this path for a long time and others that have more recently joined the movement. As designers we have a huge responsibility to not only educate our clients but show them only materials that are sustainable. Our clients look to us to find the best products and materials to create a special look for them so we should also be finding the best sustainable products as well.
Our team used live moss in this lobby area to create a sustainable feature wall.
How can we as designers take action?
First of all, we can start asking the right questions to our vendors and suppliers. Find out what their sustainable products are and how they are made.
Second we can make sure the companies that we want to work with are transparent. Transparency is key so we can understand their process thru reporting.
Lastly we should be looking for “Declare labels” on all the products that we specify.
Whether our clients are looking for a sustainably designed spaces or not we have the power to make sure every project is created this way for a much healthier and longer lasting environment.
Sincerely,
Julie Hartman
Commercial Team Lead at Rieke Interiors