Our journey to becoming a sustainable design studio

We can all do more when it comes to sustainable practices in our businesses, in the operational decisions we make and in our day-to-day working habits. Here’s how, at Bell & Swift we are taking action to become more sustainable.

“Our actions make a difference”

According to data quoted by the Carbon Trust, SMEs (Small to Medium-sized Enterprises) represent around 90% of businesses and around 50% of employment worldwide, so businesses like ours are key to achieving government’s carbon-reduction targets.

At Bell & Swift, we are committed to becoming a more sustainable business, and in our daily work in our design studio. We see ourselves as a business that has begun action, but also, statistically one of the 51% of SMEs that also say they want to do more.

Business benefits from sustainable choices

Now, with almost one in three of the UK’s largest businesses committing to eliminate their contribution to climate change, it’s positive that many smaller businesses are on the journey.

Like many other businesses, we know the changes we make will contribute positively to our business, by reducing costs, reducing how much energy we consume and improving our own immediate and wider environment.

We’ve done it – a paperless design studio

Since forming Bell & Swift in 2019 we have been paperless. As a design studio this is unusual. According to research, the average UK office worker prints 6000 sheets of paper a year so we knew this was an area we could make an impact.

At the start we invested in IT equipment that allows us to hand sketch and overmark drawings so our need to use paper is zero so we don’t even have a printer in the office. We’ve also eliminated all paper business cards and instead, our team use the Zappify app to share our details with colleagues and new connections when out and about.

Plastic water bottles

“It takes 162g of oil and seven litres of water to manufacture a single one litre disposable PET bottle.” (refill.org.uk)

Like many businesses needing to provide refreshments for staff, we used to keep the studio fridge topped up with bottled water. That’s now a habit firmly in the past and we have now given all staff refillable water bottles.

Cutting down travel with an office relocation

“Transport is the largest emitting sector of GHG emissions.” (gov.uk)

In 2022, we moved our office location to East Kilbride meaning the team members who live locally can walk to work rather than the previous half hour commute to the studio by car.

Our new studio is not only spacious, bright and airy, it is also only a short walk from the train station.

Now when we travel to visit our projects and clients and have site meetings, we always try to take the train. It is not always possible to travel by train but as well as the environmental benefits we find it a much more relaxing way to get about.

Being fabric-conscious

“Globally we produce 13 million tons of textile waste each year, 95% of which could be reused or recycled.” (Nasdaq.com)

Being a working interior design studio, we have a lot of fabric samples on hand, with new ones coming in all the time. We now have several strategies to deal with the waste these create and are conscious of the intense amount of resource they take to make in the first place.

Firstly, we are careful about the number of fabric samples we order in the first place. We stop to consider, before we order, if we really need them, or as many. And we often get in touch with the suppliers to ask if we can send them back once we’re finished so they can reuse them. This applies to all samples including wall coverings and flooring.

And, secondly, we donate fabric samples we no longer require, including fabric books out of circulation, to local nurseries and schools for their arts and crafts activities.

Sustainable by design

One of the most impactful ways we can promote sustainability is through our own design work with clients and other businesses.

When we are engaged on a new design project, or refurbishment, we also start by reviewing what we can keep, what can be re-used or enhanced. We are conscious of the design materials, where they’re produced and how, their impact on the environment and how they travel here. We aim to deal with suppliers who are conscious of their own environmental impact.

Similarly, in the designs we create, we aim to promote functions that support sustainability and contribute to the environmental business aims of the organisations we work for.

Always reviewing our sustainability

We don’t intend to stop at these measures. We have regular reviews in place to assess where we are on our sustainability journey and what more we can do at Bell & Swift to constantly improve our choices to be more eco-friendly.