We don’t know what we’re doing. That was what all of us learnt about sustainability eventually week’s 3 Days of Design in Copenhagen as Denmark’s capital metropolis performed host as soon as extra to this more and more influential European Design occasion. Timed, as it’s, in the identical week as Chicago’s Neocon, and following on from Milan’s huge and well-renowned Salone, not even intermittently inclement climate may disguise the noticeably bigger viewers drawn to Copenhagen this yr.
Residence to among the most stunning cupboard maker designs on this planet, Denmark’s main furnishings producers had been out in drive. Carl Hansen, Normann Copenhagen, Fredericia, Fritz Hansen, Hay and Muuto had been simply among the massive names opening up their spectacular multi-floor present areas within the centre of town.
The massive theme, as anticipated, was round Sustainability. All over the place you went, producers had been extolling the ‘sustainable’ nature of their merchandise on supply. Recycled content material and post-use recyclability, responsibly sourced supplies and adaptability of use had been signposted in each show.
In a noticeable departure from final yr’s color all over the place strategy, earthy beiges, lotions and sand finishes, accented with the odd splash of lavender and pink rose, dominated the various process and couch seating ranges being proven, and the emphasis as soon as extra was on regionally sourced supplies.
What did we be taught?
Usually exhibits like this prior to now have felt just like the echo chambers one experiences on social media, the place you hear solely what you wish to hear, time and again, till it turns into your reality. What I loved most about this yr’s 3 Days of Design was partaking with these producers who had been prepared to problem our norms.
1 – We don’t know what we’re doing
There was a willingness amongst various exhibitors to brazenly admit that we’re a great distance away from understanding the problem that furnishings manufacturing and consumption prompts. Trine Mulvad Steffensen, Muuto’s Sustainability Lead, spoke of Muuto’s goal to cut back their carbon footprint by 50% by 2030. With the intention to obtain this, and talking together with her you could be pretty assured they may, three foremost themes got here by means of.
Firstly, this can be a goal that has come from board degree, and her function is to carry that board to account all through this course of. Secondly, the most important a part of that footprint revolves across the merchandise they promote. Lastly, with the intention to obtain an bold goal resembling this, they should begin with the information. How can they know what their problem is with out that information?
It was one in all various open conversations with producers and designers accepting that we’re on a steep studying curve in the meanwhile, and that this journey has solely actually simply begun.
2 – Sustainable furnishings isn’t simply in regards to the supplies inside that product.
Whereas the content material of every chair, desk, couch, pod and shelving unit we noticed is a vital factor of a producer’s dedication to sustainability, many corporations are additionally, fairly rightly, emphasising the impression of their manufacturing on the wellbeing of their native communities, in addition to the modularity and adaptability of the options they’ve offered for his or her purchasers.
Eventhough Office Wellbeing was much less the tagline on everybody’s lips, and biophilia and Pods weren’t as omnipresent as in earlier exhibits, there have been optimistic indicators that creating nice, related locations to work, was nonetheless a precedence as a part of a sustainability agenda.
3 – Regionally sourced isn’t all the time greatest sourced
It is smart that should you can supply the supplies to your merchandise near the place you might be manufacturing, then you might be minimising the environmental impression of the transport of these supplies. Once we requested Mater, in our opinion some of the progressive producers within the sustainability discipline, why they had been sourcing Mango wooden from India, they defined that this wooden was a by-product of mango farming, and offered an additional supply of revenue for the native farmers from what was beforehand an primarily waste product as soon as the timber had stopped producing fruit. Not solely that, however the local weather in India ensures that this wooden regrows rather more shortly than regionally sourced timber would, usually inside 7-12 years, making certain a sustainable lifecycle.
It’s an incredible instance of our earlier assumptions being challenged, and in addition, as a B Corp licensed firm, it’s nice for us at Wellworking to be introduced with Mater’s assertion that their Moral footprint is as vital as their Environmental one.
4 – Again to the Future
Quite a few producers have dived into their archives, and people of different designers, to re-imagine historic designs utilizing right now’s supplies.
A lot of these designs got here from a post-war period of shortage, one thing that we, as trendy shoppers, are being inspired to contemplate extra deeply. An interesting discuss with the uber-talented Rikke Frost, award-winning designer of the Sideways assortment for Carl Hansen, revealed why her furnishings is nearly not possible to take a seat in with out wanting to the touch and really feel it continually. That need to work together with the furnishings was a significant driver behind her design work. Her feeling is that by making her furnishings so tactile, she is encouraging individuals to subconsciously take into account the supplies getting used.
At a time of straightforward availability, sustainability to those individuals is about fascinated by the shortage which can observe.
5 – A model shared is a model doubled
International design chief Vitra shared an occasion with Kvadrat, and British powerhouse designer Tom Dixon continued his profitable collaboration with Danish producer Ege Carpets whereas additionally introducing their extremely anticipated AW24 assortment.
‘In all probability the very best’ examples of this collaborative strategy had been at Hay. Their teaming up with Asics on the restricted version Skyhand OG assortment offered out inside an hour of its day 1 launch, whereas their equally restricted version collaboration with Carlsberg, solely served at their Thursday night cocktail get together, was put beneath comparable stress.
6 – Circularity, and different elephants within the room
Regardless of circularity being a buzz phrase all through the 2 days, just one or two producers we spoke to had been planning refurbishment into the format of their manufacturing services.
Whereas Plan A stays manufacturing as a lot new product as we will promote, the Plan B of what occurs when the proportion of product purchased that’s model new declines, and it’ll, was slightly shockingly absent from most conversations.
What one producer fairly rightly recognized was that the refurbishment of present product wanted to happen extra regionally. As a B Corp which is investing in increasingly of our personal house to do that for our manufacturing companions, we couldn’t agree extra, but it surely nonetheless got here as a shock to not hear about extra producers planning for second-life refurbishment.
7 – The exceptions show the rule
Montana refused to learn the impartial colors memo, exhibiting off their typical distinctive color palette throughout a variety of desking, seating and storage items.
Lintex used their house to place collectively a considerate exhibition focussing on neurodiversity, a rising theme in right now’s workplace wellbeing story. Their curated walk-through, barricaded at many factors by purple string, got here collectively on the finish level to indicate how a various set of concepts, not simply understandable individually, may come collectively to type readability and objective.
Sarcastically given the climate lately, it additionally seems that open air actually is the brand new indoors. There have been many great all-weather furnishings designs on present, a lot of which had been profitable developments of present basic designs.
An interesting few days on this beautiful metropolis, with the Danish traits of openness and integrity of design on full show. Traits that are sorely wanted if we’re to really perceive what sustainability must imply for our business.
