Now more than ever we crave interiors that connect us to nature and each other and tackle the climate emergency in meaningful ways. ClarkeHopkinsClarke Interiors Associate Michelle Cavicchiolo and Senior Interior Designer Carmen Jackson share three simple

For designers serious about addressing the climate emergency there’s no shortage of detailed information, good advice or, more recently, thoughtful commentary about how coronavirus recovery can help the cause. What’s hard is sifting through it all and identifying a few key steps that’ll have most impact for your particular practice and clients.

COVID-19 makes this harder in some ways, easier in others. Harder because lockdown has hit industries such as hospitality and development hard and changed clients’ priorities, project schedules and budgets overnight. Clients struggling to retain staff and re-build markets may not prioritise going carbon neutral as highly as they would have just a few months back amid global climate strikes, bushfire devastation and Architects Declare’s Carbon Neutral Pledge.

Easier because lockdown has amplified demand for cities and spaces designed for sustainability and resilience; in the local design industry, it has widened the market for Australian-made products, materials and finishes. Images of skies and waterways clearing of pollution and animals returning to empty streets are hard to ignore. Prolonged time at home has us all craving better connection to nature, questioning our consumption and doing more with less. That’s good news for biophilic design and products designed with people and planet in mind – for instance, those produced using closed-loop and cradle-to-cradle processes that embed recycling into the lifespan of materials and products. It’s also a huge opportunity for designers who consider environmental, social and financial sustainability in every project they design and every product they specify. Clients need evidence