The British Institute of Interior Design (BIID) has launched the Sustainable Specifying Guide. The new guide is designed to give interior designers a broad knowledge of the sustainability issues associated with specifying products, materials and technologies.
BIID President Lindsey Rendall said, “It has never been more important to show our commitment as an industry to sustainable design practices. Our role is to advise our clients on the environmental and social impact of their projects and this guide will help designers do exactly that. The guide was designed and written by the BIID Sustainability Committee who are all practicing interior designers. This ensures that the guide delivers what designers need to grow their knowledge on this vital and wide-ranging subject.”
The Sustainable Specifying Guide provides an overview of supply chain / lifecycle considerations, followed by a series of useful questions that can be used in conversations with suppliers and project implementation teams, to encourage them to offer or facilitate lower impact solutions.
The goal of the guide is to encourage the industry as a whole to review the impact of their projects and where possible make improvements. This can be achieved by learning and sharing knowledge of:
• Where products and materials come from and how they are made
• What impact they have on their immediate and wider environment
• The durability and ‘end of life’ for products and materials.
The Sustainable Specifying Guide will be an evolving digital document with regular updates. And the BIID plan to support the guide with a range of CPDs and training workshops to enable designers to learn more about sustainability and opportunities to specify with a lower impact.
The guide also covers essential topics such as health & well-being, energy consumption during use, design for longevity and material specification.
The Sustainable Specifying Guide was created by the BIID’s Sustainability Committee – Liz Bell, Chloe Bullock, Simone Suss and Brian Woulfe and the late Anna Whitehead.
The guide is free to enable all interior designers (not just BIID members) tackle the sustainability issue. It can be downloaded here
For further details of the BIID’s three year sustainability strategy, click here
