Greening with Yellow
How much of a stretch of the imagination does it take to call Upholstery a green profession? Perhaps not that much, you may think after reading this.
As we peruse the list of IfATE apprenticeships, one standard we won’t find in the ‘green’ list is upholsterers. Why should we? Upholsterers aren’t exactly the first people we call to build or maintain a wind farm, or reforest the countryside, or fit an EV charging station. The closest an upholsterer might come to making a cameo on IfATE’s green occupations stage is Leather craftsperson, but that’s only because some bright spark has added the word sustainable to one of the job titles there.
Similarly, the Office for National Statistics (ONS), who told us all in March 2022 that it was working on its definitions of green jobs and then updated us in March 2023 to tell us it was still thinking about it. Given ONS’s definition – ‘following substantial stakeholder engagement’ – of a green job as ‘employment in an activity that contributes to protecting or restoring the environment, including those that mitigate or adapt to climate change’ when (if?) it eventually produces its green list, we’re not exactly chewing off our own arms in anticipation that upholsterers will make the cut.
Which is a pity, according to Jo Bowler of Yellow Interiors.
Think of it this way. Post-pandemic, there’s a competitive market right now to get new tenants into office buildings. Covid and the new working from home culture has hit hard and suddenly there's all this empty office space that property investment firms are – for want of a better expression – ‘tarting up’ to attract new tenants. Doing so with green credentials attached is good for business, or for marketing at least. That might include plugging into this new circular economy thing and installing refurbished office furniture. And who do you need to smarten up those fabulous – if perhaps not quite right for the colour scheme you’re planning – meeting room chairs you got from the wealth management firm up the road with more money than sense that’s chucking them out and replacing them after only 18 months of use? You’ve got it – an upholsterer!
Do we still think upholstery isn’t a green profession? We’ll come back to that. For now, let’s hear from Jo about Yellow…
Yellow is a commercial interiors design house, proudly still operating as a micro-business after 25 years. Based near Southampton and founded by Alison John, the firm doubled in size (to two) when Jo Bowler came on board and produces interior designs for hotels, bars, retail bars and pretty much anything else that isn’t domestic. It's been on our to-do list to chat with Yellow for a while, since meeting Jo and Alison on the Green Innovation Steering Group organised by the Hampshire Chamber of Commerce. We noted Yellow’s focus on sustainable designs and their collaborations with circular economy-focused suppliers like TRACOuk, who we featured in one of our posts on B Corps last year and who also sit on the Hampshire group.
As we said, office refurbishments are big right now and Jo tells us Yellow is very much in an office mindset at the moment. Increasingly, she says, having the environmental edge is being seen as an advantage: “Whether it's in energy or other areas, it’s suddenly becoming a reality. Some of our clients are now talking about their refurbishments being BREEAM-certified. It's what we've been saying for years and now it's becoming an economic and marketing benefit. It feels like the tide is turning and we’re on a much stronger footing”.
Office furniture that’s been given the circular economy treatment is, of course, part of that picture, and Jo tells us that when it comes to things like the small pedestal drawers everyone has under their desks, there are so many good quality ones available on the second-hand market no-one should ever have to buy new ones again. But what about the bigger items that define the shape and feel of the office? Jo again: “I think there is cultural shift taking place. Sometimes, when a client wants a new project, especially if their company is moving into it rather than tenants, they want it to be new and they want it to be shiny and they want that reveal moment. Certainly, in domestic projects, people want that grand reveal, that total change.
“But businesses generally want a functioning economical project rather than necessarily that same sort of buzz. So, we’re starting to look at what they already have and analysing it, thinking, well, this doesn't go with the current scheme we're planning and then thinking, maybe we need to relook at the scheme because here is perfectly nice, good quality item in good condition. Are we really going to ditch it?”
This is where the talents of the interior designers come into play, of course. But the designers are just one link in the value chain and there are oftentimes the old chestnut frictions between the other links: architects, builders, fitters and assemblers, and whoever else might be contracted in to get a job done. And unless a firm like Yellow has full project control, then once a design is delivered variations can sneak in downstream and sometimes the sustainable intent can be diluted. Jo tells us Yellow has recently been specifying cork flooring as an alternative to vinyl flooring. It's good on the foot and reasonably sustainable. But many flooring contractors are reluctant to install it, perhaps through a combination of unfamiliarity, reluctance to do something new, and eagerness to leverage the great deal they’ve got with their own suppliers for the good old vinyl flooring they’ve been fitting for years. So, cork gets sidelined.
Another – perhaps more alarming – example is paint. Jo mentions a well-known brand that painting and decorating contractors often deviate to, steamrollering across the recommendations for a clean-tech brand of the type often recommended by Yellow. A deviation like this may not only affect the sustainability of the design or even the BREEAM verification – clean-tech paints are low in volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and the quantities of VOC’s that may be present in the contractors’ go-to brands are not pleasant things for them to be breathing in on a daily basis.
Perhaps this is a feature of the current market, where shortages of craftspeople like floorers and painters mean that contractors can pick and choose their jobs and pass over any that feel too much like trouble to do differently from what they’re used to. On the other hand, was it ever any different?
But, Jo tells us, when it works, it works well. She tells us about an office fit-out recently completed at Priory Court in Runcorn, which on handover contained the highest proportion of reused furniture Yellow has ever specified. Seventy percent of the furniture was pre-owned and delivered from TRACOuk and another second-hand commercial furniture supplier. Between them, the suppliers had all the desks they needed and as many as thirty meeting room chairs, enough to fill several meeting rooms. Jo acknowledges there was a bit of a furniture-miles issue with carting everything from the South coast up to Cheshire, but says, “Had we known some local suppliers we may have been able to work with them. But we're getting there”.
Image: Yellow
Knowing and keeping track of what’s out there, particularly in the evolving world of sustainability, is critical. So much so that Yellow has taken the step of building its own database of sustainable products. With a grant from LoCase (Low Carbon Across the South and East) and access to construction research experts, the database holds certification and other information on manufacturers and products like flooring, paints and furniture. As Jo explains, “We often looked at Cradle to Cradle as being the gold standard. There are quite a lot of manufacturers within our industry who are Cradle to Cradle Certified for certain products and we just used to go for those. But then we realised there are plenty of other certifications out there and we didn't really understand how to compare them. So, we commissioned the database”.
Along with certification information, the database comes with tools for assessing and making decisions based on different aspects of a product, like its proportions of recycled content. Although it’s still new, Jo says it is helping a lot already and they’re starting to use it for products like carpet tiles. She says, “We'd love to be really cool designers with amazing funky floors everywhere, but a lot of what we do is carpet tiles on the sort of grey to dark grey spectrum. So, we started to analyse them. And we find that some carpet tiles have huge recycled content, but if this is recycled plastic, some of them may be shedding fibres into the environment and into our lungs”.
“So every time you make some sort of step forward, the pesky truth comes in and we find out more and have to rethink”.
Screenshot image: Yellow
While Yellow is adding to the database all the time for its own use, Jo tells us they're not sure what they're going to do with it in the longer term. But she stresses they don't necessarily intend to keep the data private. While it's designed for the way Yellow works, she believes its important to share the information they are continuing to uncover. The Green Edge agrees; we can see how it can add value, perhaps as an add-in to a built-environment platform like NBS.
Let’s go back to recycled furniture, though. We were interested to hear earlier about never needing to buy new under-desk pedestal drawers again. Jo tells us the same is also true for office lockers, with thousands being available second hand. In fact, all that generic furniture, which she tells us probably makes up 50 to 60% of a scheme for an office, can be got through the circular economy. What tends to be new and bespoked are the big showy items, like reception desks and breakout areas, although she says it’s always worth checking the pre-loved market first because there is some fantastic stuff out there.
But here’s a thing that takes us back to our old chums the upholsterers. There’s a green skills implication to all this. Jo explains: “When you're getting new furniture from the supplier, the people assembling it know exactly how it works, because it's what they assemble every single day of their lives. But when it's a bit more of a mish-mash of furniture, with perhaps a wonky leg here or a mechanism that needs to be worked out over there, then it needs a bit more improvisation and possibly a bit more technical skill”.
Companies like TRACOuk provide that as part of the service. They also deal with things like reuse of flammable materials. But when it comes to upholsterers, who might be needed for a batch of chairs that need to be refitted with new wool covers – which, incidentally, are naturally fire resistant – then there may be more of a problem. Jo again: “Actually, we've been searching for upholsterers. There are a few in our area, but also there are quite a few reaching retirement age who don't have anybody to continue the business. And once you start to run out of upholsterers, furniture ends up on landfill. Of course, there are a lot of cottage industry upholstery people doing it in their spare time as a bit of a hobby. But if we need an upholsterer for, say, 30 chairs, we need somebody who's going to meet deadlines. It might need to be done in a week, because that's how the contract industry works. So upholsterers are something we’re on the lookout for”.
Upholstery, anyone?
Image: Yellow
Our thanks to Jo Bowler and Yellow Interiors for talking to The Green Edge for this post.