THE SUSTAINABLE HOME

Designer Sebastian Cox charts the renovation of his home, one inspiring and innovatively eco-friendly idea at a time

Sebastian Cox gets under the skin of eco paint

My nerves peaked as I Zoomed in to Edward Bulmer’s office; after years of giving interviews, this time I was the interviewer. It’s more pressure, especially with someone you admire. Edward has a mission to change the paint industry, and I don’t want to hold him up.

Before buying a house, paint was low on my list of eco concerns. I thought, it’s only a thin layer of material which has, surely, a small impact. But when you scale it up, it matters – and with 703 million litres of paint sold in the UK in 2019, it needed scrutiny.

I discovered Edward Bulmer when on the panel for this magazine’s Awards, and I’m grateful I did. Only months later my wife, Brogan, pregnant with our second baby, would be painting the ground floor of our house and, thanks to that discovery, not breathing excessive Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCS), which can compromise the health of unborn babies. There are many low-voc paints on the market, but few are derived from entirely natural sources – Edward’s are.

He explained that industrially produced paint began as a by-product of the refining of fossil fuels. In recent decades, these oil-based paints were replaced by high-performing emulsions of plastic suspended in water. Making paint water based seems a good step forward, but using only naturally derived ingredients (maize starch, beech tree cellulose and earth pigments, as examples) is, so far, a leap only pioneers are taking.

When Brogan levered open our Edward Bulmer tins, what struck us both was the lack of smell. As she began to roller it on, there remained no fragrance and we began to question the product’s durability… there must be a catch, we thought. I’ll report back on that once our toddler has had a year to test it.

So what should our priorities be when examining paint and sustainability? Certainly VOCS are a concern, and paint companies across the board have lowered these at an impressive pace since a legal requirement to publish VOC content on the tin was imposed in 2012. I believe Little Greene, Farrow & Ball, Earthborn, Eicó and Edward Bulmer all perform well here. I also believe we should be moving away from materials derived from fossil resources where natural alternatives exist. We should also be concerned about what happens when we wash our brushes – anything that contains acrylic or other plastics puts tiny plastic molecules into our water system. Edward’s paints omit fossil-derived acrylic, so became my first choice along with lime paints such as Bauwerk and Graphenstone, which we will try elsewhere in our house.

Finally, there’s the impact of production. Farrow & Ball seems to be a larger brand striving for lower impact, recycling 100% of its dry and 97% of its liquid waste and has an on-site water treatment facility, but Eicó, who runs its factory on geothermal energy, seems unbeatable here, although its product is made in Iceland and is 100% acrylic, leaving you to pick your environmental priorities. While it’s a burden to decide, it’s exciting to see smaller players leading change.

The brands that really stand out to me are those who publish their ingredients on the tin and those with high accreditation from recognisable bodies. Perhaps, as always, lowering our consumption is the best place to start when thinking about sustainability. Picking colours that last, responding to a space, its aspect and use, might be the greatest impact you can have.