What do you think of when you think of sustainable interior design? Is it a home with hardwood floors, colors with a low VOC or something more unique than bamboo accents or cork? For years, sustainability has been synonymous with certain material decisions that are environmentally friendly, but history has much more.
According to the American Society of Interior Designer (ASID) 2025 trend report, wellness and sustainability are now more than ever in the minds of homeowners. Adaptable design and circular thinking have a moment – and brands that carry their procurement stories in their sleeves quickly become a buyer.
Seventy percent of global consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable product design (PDI technologies), while the Harvard Business Review generates that gen Z and Millennial buyers buy 27 percent more products from a sustainable brand than their older colleagues. Eco -conscious design is not only an advantage for the planet, it is also the right (and cool) thing.
“For me, sustainability is not an add-on. It is the basis for really good design.” Richard Dudzicki
(Photo credit: Timothy Soar. Design: RDA architects)
While the climate problems are further exacerbated, designers are asked to think more about what sustainable interior design actually means, how to work with new technologies and how to face the challenges that work with different climate zones.
With sustainable interior design, it is no longer just about recycling materials or doing basic requirements. It is about building sustainable houses that are deliberately and durable from ground to ceiling, baseboards to installations.
What do some of the world's leading designers do when it comes to putting sustainability into practice?
For Richard Dudzicki in Great Britain, founder of RDA Architects, “sustainable interior design is no longer just a check box. It is a full spectrum approach, from the structure of the building to the way someone lives in the room in 30 years,” he says.
As an expert in passive house design and energy-consuming architecture, his work in the residential and public sector has rightly received recognition for more than two decades.
“It is about preferring thoughtful material decisions, the local, low-carbon and non-toxic products and at the same time ensure that the design supports energy efficiency, well-being and durability,” he says. “Nowadays, sustainability in the interior designer goes far beyond the gestures on the surface level. It is about adaptability, the introduction of circular principles and intentions with every decision-from lighting schemes up to the spatial planning.”
Richard Dudzicki is a industry leader in the Passive House community and recently won the best Green house in 2023 at the Daily Telegraph's Home Building & Renovating Awards. He has been committed to a sustainable interior design for over 25 years and has designed and built more than 200 energy -efficient houses. His mission is to change people's perception of what a home can be, and to prove that energy efficiency and architectural design go hand in hand.
Some of his projects include the PIFIVEHAUS, a low energy according to Restum, in which a modular system outside the location with CLT system (CLT), a great method for precision and reducing construction waste is used with minimal environmental influences.
The house also has intelligent technologies to improve its overall efficiency. There is also a loading point for electric cars and an electric bike loading point. In addition to a Japanese -inspired garden and open habitats, another current project transformed a neglected house in the 1960s through highly efficient insulation and new windows and doors for airtight.
“For me, sustainability is not an add-on. It is the basis for really good design,” says Richard.
Knowing how you are economical instead of always buying new ones is a way to contribute to more sustainable interior designers.
(Photo credit: Rebecca Hughes Interiors)
For the designer Rebecca Hughes, who designs houses from Great Britain to Malaysia and from India to Central Europe, sustainability and luxury can go hand in hand.
“Sustainable interior design is about creating rooms that are both beautiful and permanently and use materials and processes that minimize the environmental impact,” she says.
For example, she is currently working on a project in London with a rainwater use system. “We worked on projects in a number of climate zones, from Great Britain to Asia and always adapt our approach – whether this takes into account the insulation and energy consumption in colder climate zones or ventilation in warmer areas. If possible, local procurement is of crucial importance.”
What has your interest in stylish, sustainable interior design? “I grew up surrounded by antiques and saw how well -made pieces over generations can take,” she says.
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Nina Woodcroft, director of Nina + Co, also deals with the health of the planet with each of her works and looks at the selection of the life of a project.
While her own home, an updated jewel with cork from the 1970s, is a generally sustainable star in the interior, she mainly works on trade rooms in her own practice.
“In his mid-twenties, I realized that my actions and decisions at work, the designed international hotels and high-end residences were designed.” Finally, this caused me to start Nina+Co to work with customers and employees who took care of the deeper problems. “
Since then she has been working on Silo, the first zero-conscious restaurant in the world, which has earned a Michelin-Green star and a clean, derogatory beauty business.
Nina Woodcroft founded her design studio in 2014 and since then has produced award -winning interior and products with “applied circular thinking and radical materiality”. She is committed and works with old and pioneering sustainable materials such as mushroom myzel, algae and bio chest to create spaces that are also sensitive to the people who live in them as a whole.
While she is familiar with Cork, Nina is looking forward to exploring more sustainable materials.
“It has much more to do with algae – it seems that it can be converted into countless useful things. I have been working with Myzel for some time, but together the world has only scratched the possibilities for the use of the useful properties of fungi,” she notes.
Nina's own home (which is wrapped in Cork) has incredible sustainable references and proves that it does not have to be with a cost of style.
(Photo credit: French+Tye. Design: Roar Architects)
And what does Nina hope for the future of sustainable interior design? “Our future interiors are grown, placed and found, which means that the useful properties of local rapid rapidly growing plants such as hemp and reeds are used in different forms,” she says. “We will also become wiser in recycling. Use a waste current to feed a different process: the way the rest of nature works.”
While not every designer is already working with Cork (or algae), sustainability makes a good design. So it's time to start now.
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