I want to write about being an ethical business and what that means to me. I've been very fortunate to experience the inner workings of a successful ethical business in action during my 10 years for The Body Shop International’s head office - so it's natural for me to carry these values on into my own business.   

This month I celebrate my 15th year in business and I'd like to use that milestone to review what I am doing and to make improvements.  Wow 15 years though.  It’s been a great experience but it’s not been the simplest path - from a housefire in my first week in business (I’ll tell you about this another time!) - to a financial crisis, Brexit uncertainty and now a pandemic!  Who’d have thought it would be so dramatic.  

TREE PLANTING is really important to me and my clients love having trees planted in their name as a thank you when I've worked with them.   It is a positive although inaccurate contribution to offset the carbon used on the materials used in their projects. I’m aware it’s not in any way exact.  

The exciting news is that there are pioneering furniture suppliers are able to give a CO2 calculation with their products.  It’s a hugely useful piece of information and I can’t wait for it to become the norm in my industry.  Clients can consider that as part of their decision process.  

I want to review and increase my commitment to planting trees...

🌳Up to now I've been planting 10 trees at the beginning and end of a full project.  This will now be 25 at the beginning and end.  

🌳 I've also decided to plant 10 trees for each one-off consultation as I've been doing lots more of these recently - especially online.

🌳 As a THANK YOU for anyone recommending my services I have 10 trees planted in the name of the referee for each positive CLIENT REFERRAL lead  I receive. 

🌳 I’m planning to stay on the ground for travel for a while - but if I do fly I will I’ll follow Natalie Fee’s advice in her book ‘How To Save The World For Free’ She tells us “...if the aviation sector was a country - it would be the 7th biggest polluter in the world.” Obviously this is a pre-pandemic fact.  But it’s an alarming one.  Natalie recommends 

• Atmos Fair - the flight is calculated and you pay to offset.  Offsetting takes the form of numerous climate protection projects such as energy efficiency, wind energy, hydro and solar power.  

• Mossy Earth - your flight is calculated by the hour or road trip by distance and you pay for native trees to be planted and/or support their rewilding projects.

Today I'm up to 433 trees planted and I'm just about to plant more for a client. 

The project I'm supporting at the moment is PETA founder Jane Goodall's Institute initiative with OneTreePlanted - who need our help to plant 3 million trees as part of the Wildlife Habitat & Corridor Restoration Project. The Albertine Rift landscape is a diverse ecosystem which is crucial to many species and is a prominent habitat for endangered chimpanzees. It also houses over 50% of birds, 39% of mammals, 19% of amphibians, and 14% of reptiles and plants of mainland Africa. By pooling resources and combining efforts, One Tree Planted and the Jane Goodall Institute are aiming to restore and manage these incredible forests.⠀And it's not just about biodiversity, working with local communities will also include promoting agroforestry for sustainability, improving forest monitoring, and establishing community-managed enterprises and microlending programs in order to create a holistic long-term benefit.⠀⠀

DESIGN FOR DIVERSITY

What Design For Diversity?

It is an initiative and community devised by interior designer Rukmini Patel and journalist Kate Watson-Smyth.  Listen to Kate’s podcast with Sophie Robinson for shocking and saddening insights into racism in the interior design industry - including one from my friend Jecks Stone, founder of Persona Abode. 

Kate says: “We do not claim it as a solution. But we offer it as the start of a conversation.  A sign that the door is open…… It’s our sincere hope that the presence of this sticker on a design website or social channel will give those who see it the confidence to take a step forward, while offering reassurance that their interest will be received with positivity and fairness.”

What is the Pledge?

It is a three-point Pledge covering  Visibility,  Opportunity and Accessibility to help the design industry to become diverse. It is a first step to working towards a diverse design industry and giving brands, businesses and bloggers a guideline on areas they can work on to encourage.

To pledge support designers and suppliers should post the badge so all can see it and make a relevant pledge. 

I have signed up to the Design for Diversity pledge.  

You don’t have to be an employer to be involved.  

Things even a micro-business like mine can do….

• I’m always seeking out products to use (especially sustainable!) and I would especially like to support BAME businesses who produce them.  

• I would be really happy to mentor a student or designer from a BAME background too.  If you are interested in what I do and think mentoring from me would help you, please contact me by the end of November if you are interested. 

Many designers and suppliers are now part of this initiative.  View here.

Designers and suppliers can sign up here.

Please help to support and encourage this important initiative to encourage a diverse design industry. 

I’m nearly at 15 whole years of running my micro business and it’s only really in recent years that I’ve started to get to know other designers both in the area and further away.  I’m not sure why it took so long as I’m finding them to be such a supportive and interesting group of people!  

I’ve met lots of local designers through Design Brighton (old and new versions), through networking such as Property Smarts, also further away via the British Institute of Interior Design, through the vegan design community.  Even the interio designer community on social media has been a support to each other. There’s a lovely group on Instagram especially.  We are by now means the same.  We all have different specialisms and ideal clients.  It’s really interesting how many variations there are and we have lots to learn from each other.

One is Angela Cheung.  I’ve known about her since I started.  At that time there really weren’t nearly so many designers in the Sussex area.  She was working mainly in residential and I was working mainly in commercial.  So our paths didn’t cross.

Earlier in the year I heard she was now specialising in Biophilic Design - which is our need for a connection to nature.  It’s an area I am very interested in as well as it’s all about occupant health.   I’ve written about it a fair bit.  I am nowhere near as knowledgeable as Angela is about it.  Healthy building design really is the way forward for the built environment - more than ever in this time of pandemic.  Like me Angela has continued studying throughout her career and you’ll hear about her exciting new learning adventure during our conservation.  We both love to learn.

Angela contacted me suggesting we recorded a conversation about interior design.  I hope you enjoy the chat!

Watch to find out more about Biophilic Design, Human Centric Design as a whole, Sustainability and Vegan Design and we both share tips to help anyone watching who might be interested in improving their spaces.

You can follow Angela at @angelacheunguk