Category: The Body Shop

1. SUSTAINABLE SPECIFICATION GUIDE for interior designers

   Posted on 12:00pm Saturday 25th Sep 2021

    

   

   The Sustainable Specification Guide which I co-wrote with my fellow committee members from the British Institute of Interior Design was launched at the brilliant Planted design show at Kings Cross, London.
   
   I was so fortunate to have an excellent grounding in sustainable design during my time at The Body Shop HQ for 10 years from the mid nineties. I have loved helping my clients with more conscious specifications for the interiors I have designed for them. In recent years though - I have realised it's my fellow designers who I really want to influence in order to have a real impact for making much needed change in our industry.
   
   A year and a half ago, past BIID President @HarrietForde invited me to join the Professional Practice Committee for the professional body.
   
   In that short time - the committee (designers Liz Bell, Anna Whitehead, Simone Suss, Angela Bardino, Brian Woulfe) and the excellent BIID team lead by Katherine Elworthy, have delivered....
   
   

   -  updated Code Of Conduct for members - incorporating sustainability and modern slavery

   -  the Sustainability Strategy for the BIID up to 2024

   - Guidance on assessing our practice’s carbon footprint

   -  Guidance on reducing and offsetting our practice’s carbon emissions

   -  Sustainable Specification Guide - a live document which will be updated yearly

   -  a growing Continuing Professional Development programme to support the new guide

    

   
   Sustainability is an inherent part of this excellent professional body - as it should be.
   
   I’m extremely grateful to BIID past president Lori Pinkerton Rolet for her support during my almost 16 years in business - but mostly for encouraging me to be an active member of this organisation. 

   
   I think #AnitaRoddick would be delighted to see her influence spreading to other businesses like this. 

   More of this please!
   
   
   

    

   Download the guide here Sustainable Specification Guide

2. MY (RE)TURNING POINT

   Posted on 12:00pm Wednesday 5th May 2021

   

    

   I've been fortunate to help local company Kings Colleges with the design of their college buildings for many years. It's such a lovely team of passionate and creative people there. I've worked on most of their UK buildings and helped to create a template to apply to their buildings globally.  A few years ago we completed Kings Brighton.  It's a building that's near to where I live and next to the Level - so lots of green space nearby for students and staff to enjoy.

   This building achieved the BREEAM sustainable building rating of EXCELLENT. So this included specifications that were lower impact, there's a living roof, living wall, cycle parking.

    

   I know about sustainability and GUESS WHAT.....I would have loved to have done SO MUCH MORE.

    

   This project very much spurred me on to work harder to provide sustainable specifications for my clients - drawing on all that I learnt during my excellent education in working in sustainability for The Body Shop's HQ early in my career. Although I thought I was working with vegan and sustainable specifications - found I had drifted into the mainstream of unconsciously sourced and specified materials and WASTE! This project completely woke me up to that and what more I could do in my role of designer.

    

    

   

    

   SO WHAT DID I DO?

   I took time out to study more to bump up my knowledge.

   I completed courses on vegan design, human centred design and sustainability. I'm currently nearly at the end of another course on using healthier materials.

    

   Clients want to make BETTER choices and want to be guided on lower impact specifications. They just don't know what to look out for or even what all the issues are. I feel it's my duty as a designer to guide them.

    

   So my learning is not going to stop and I'm working hard to influence fellow designers via INTERIOR DESIGN DECLARES and the BRITISH INSTITUTE OF INTERIOR DESIGN as well.

    

    

   Here's a short video about Kings Brighton - complete with a look around the building.

   If you'd like to read more - and tour the building in more detail - have a look here... https://www.materialiseinteriors.com/kings-brighton.html

3. The family Carrot Cream story

   Posted on 8:00am Tuesday 6th Oct 2020

   

    

   So this is our family story I touched on recently.  My mum had discovered the newly opened Body Shop in Brighton’s North Laine.  My Grandparents and Uncle lived miles away in Nottingham.  

   These were the early days when the labels for products were handwritten.

   My lovely Uncle Rob (who is just about to be 80 by the way!) had visited us for a holiday and my Mum sent some Body Shop goodies back with him for Gran to try,  One of the goodies was a pot of Carrot Cream. 

   Rob couldn’t understand why Gran had left the black pot of cream on the hall table for him to take home. She thought it said Car Rot Cream!   Rob is massively into doing up cars. She saw it was from the Body Shop and thought it was a car body repair place. The handwriting was a bit wobbly.  

   And that’s the name we call it still!