Sustainable Interior Designer

What is a sustainable interior designer? A sustainable interior designer creates interior spaces using design principles such as functionality, accessibility and aesthetics and expands their focus to include environmental considerations.

At a Glance

Imagine you are standing in the middle of a busy emergency room in a brand-new, state-of-the-art hospital. But you are not injured; you're here to evaluate the hospital's interior.

You are a sustainable interior designer and part of the team that created this space.

You and your team spent countless hours working with architects, engineers, and suppliers to create a design for the hospital's interior that balanced the functionality necessary to operate a busy hospital with environmental considerations.

As a sustainable interior designer, you didn't have an easy go of it, designing the interior of an environmentally friendly hospital.

For example, all materials and products had to meet environmental standards as well as the durability needs of a 24-hour health care facility. You chose to use linoleum rather than vinyl flooring because linoleum is made substantially from jute, a naturally occurring fibre, and possesses natural bacteria-resistant properties that make it a perfect choice for a hospital. You also chose to use scrub-able cotton wall coverings because vinyl is known to be highly toxic.

Even the choice of carpeting in the hospital's offices was based on the sample's high percentage of recycled content, and the adhesive used to glue down the flooring was chosen because it has a low toxic emission rate.

Wherever possible, you chose to use local materials to reduce the need for long-distance transportation.

The finished product also incorporates strategies for reducing energy consumption and highlights opportunities for reducing, reusing, and recycling waste, including numerous recycling bins on every ward.

Every design element in the new hospital is a choice to reduce environmental impact while still being durable enough to prove functional in this busy hospital.

Job Duties

What does a sustainable interior designer do? Job duties vary significantly from one position to the next but the following list includes typical job duties one might encounter as a sustainable interior designer:

Participate on project teams with other consultants to find integrated, innovative, and interdisciplinary solutions to design
Consult with clients to establish design concepts and parameters, including how a space will function, budget considerations, and aesthetic preferences
Generate conceptual designs using a variety of graphic techniques, including hand-drawn and computer-generated visuals, and prepare preliminary cost estimates
Present design concepts to team members and clients for approval
Prepare written specifications, working drawings, and construction documents, including verification that designs meet applicable building codes where necessary
Prepare tender drawings for contractors to price
Choose materials and suppliers and coordinate installation
Incorporate environmentally conscious products
Supervise construction and monitor quality, progress, and cost
Collaborate with professional and technical consultants

Work Environment

Sustainable interior designers work in a variety of locations, including:

The office:

Doing paperwork, administering contracts, and preparing reports
Developing design plans and construction details and coordinating with other disciplines
Communicating on the phone and in meetings with clients, contractors, colleagues, consultants, and suppliers
Organizing presentations including drawings, sketches, colour and material boards, photographs or models
Creating budget

The field:

Visiting construction sites and performing site inspections
Making presentations to stakeholders, clients, and contractor
Visiting suppliers to select and buy materials and researching the processes used to make certain products
Conducting on-site assessments to monitor the progress of projects

Where to Work

There are a number of places sustainable interior designers can find employment. They include:

Interior design firms
Architectural firms
Independent consultants
Construction firms
Material suppliers
Large corporations designing offices and retail space
Federal, provincial/territorial, and municipal government departments

Search for jobs on the ECO Canada Job Boad

Education and Skills

If you are high school student considering a career as a sustainable interior designer, you should have strong marks or an interest in:

Media, Design and Communication Arts
Mathematics
Computer Science
English

In most cases, the minimum education requirement to work as a sustainable interior designer is a university undergraduate degree.

If you are a post-secondary student considering a career as a sustainable interior designer, the following programs are most applicable:

Interior Design
Architecture
Environmental Design
Human Ecology

In most cases, sustainable interior designers must be registered or licensed with the necessary provincial association. Most sustainable interior designers are also LEED Accredited Professionals (LEED is Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).

Becoming a Certified Environmental Professional (EP) may be considered an asset too.

Skills

Hard/ Technical Skills (skills obtained through formal education and training programs)

Photoshop software (e.g., Adobe Photoshop or Adobe InDesign)
Computer-Aided Design (CAD)
Microsoft Office
Customer Relationship Management
Knowledge of sustainable practices

Soft Skills (personal attributes and characteristics)

Attentive to detail
Creative
Oral, written and graphic communication skills
Leadership
Spatial awareness
Organizational skills

Environmental employers look for professionals who can combine technical knowledge with soft skills. Watch our free webinar “Essential Not Optional: Skills Needed to Succeed in Canada’s Environmental Industry” or take our Essential Skills courses.

Role Models

Tanya McLean

A backpacking trip through Southeast Asia drastically changed Tanya McLean’s view about the environment and her career. "I saw people who were living with very few material possessions and were very happy. I also witnessed the negative effects of our consumptive western ways on the area’s people and their environment.” The interior designer returned from her travels with a new perspective and a big question. "How do I fit into the design industry, which is so materialistic and consumer-driven, when that is not important to me anymore?”

Today, Tanya is trying to strike a balance between her love of design and her desire to live in a more environmentally friendly world. Tanya has a certificate in interior design and a diploma in architectural and building engineering technology from the British Columbia Institute of Technology. Recently, she completed a sustainable design course and became LEED (Leadership in Energy and Design) accredited, an internationally recognized standard for green building design and construction. A member of the Canadian Green Building Council, Tanya has her own eco-friendly interior design company, Mango Design Co. Tanya usually works on a number of decorating and renovation projects at a time.

Most often she can be found working from her home office, spending the majority of a typical day at her drafting table drafting house or decorating plans and working through schematics. The rest of her day is given to communicating with clients and taking care of the demands of running a small business. When she’s out in the field, Tanya loves visiting local shops and suppliers, searching for eco-friendly materials and furnishings. "Shopping locally and implementing the talents of local artists and artisans is so important to a sustainable society.” It does take more energy initially to seek out natural and eco-friendly materials over the mainstream, but Tanya believes it’s worth it in the long run. Tanya’s largest responsibility is interacting with her clients. "I try to get them to think more about the future. The construction industry is one of the biggest threats to our environment. The less we need to renovate and rebuild, the better.”

When renovating, Tanya implements strategies such as reusing and recycling construction materials and installing alternate energy systems. She also encourages clients to simplify their lifestyles and their surroundings. "A big house filled with furniture and objects means more time sorting and cleaning. That time would be better spent enjoying family and friends, community and nature.” Trying to convince clients to go green is not always easy. "The majority of people make decisions based on the short-term effect on their pocketbooks. They aren’t thinking about the long-term economic and environmental effects.” Tanya is not out to change the minds of the masses but to provide a service for the niche market of environmental and social enthusiasts.

Your Impact

Projects are influenced by ensuring efficient use of space, choosing materials with low environmental impacts (such as wood or renewable materials), and reducing energy consumption, pollution, and waste.

Designing a new space can be a fun and creative process. Whether it’s a more personalized room as you enter your teenage years, a new office space, or a historical building on a university campus undergoing renovations, there is something about being able to make a blank space come to life.

But in the midst of excitement developing a blueprint, picking out colour schemes, the layout of furniture, and even adding the latest technological gadgets, we may be oblivious to the negative effects it may have on the environment. This includes whether a room that has a lot of lightbulbs which means it uses more energy. Or even people forgetting to turn taps off and it wasting water.

Taking this into account when designing a space, a sustainable interior designer may decide to incorporate more windows into a room so less artificial light is needed or add sensors to taps to lessen the amount of water wasted.

Opinions and preferences change over time and as a sustainable interior designer, you need to be mindful of creating flexible spaces that can easily be adapted to fit the needs of those using it.

Sustainable interior designers are committed to finding ways to balance aesthetics and functionality with choices that reduce the environmental impact of their designs.

In this role, you are innovative, creative, and perceptive to find a common ground between meeting the needs of the client, whilst being cognisant of the potential impacts on the environment.

When talk of environmental awareness comes into play, some assume that it means giving up the aesthetic and beauty in a space.

As a sustainable interior designer, you refute this idea. You can create a beautiful space, being the one who decides what materials and products should be utilized.

Through every new project, you factor in energy efficiency, indoor air quality, minimal land usage, and low impact materials.

A clear example of when a sustainable interior designer played a key role would be during the renovations of Triffo Hall at the University of Alberta. One of the oldest buildings on campus, it’s hard to believe once you see how modern and technologically advanced it is.

Whilst undergoing renovations, 97% of the original materials of the building were reused and in the new layout.

The cement on the floor is still the same material from when the building was first finished in 1915 but it has been cleaned and polished as though it were brand new!

It was through the aid of someone like a sustainable interior designer that the building was awarded a STARS Gold rating for overall sustainability performance in the summer of 2017. It has also received a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) gold certification.

Using a sustainable interior designer brings many benefits. From an economic standpoint, although there may be a high initial investment in capital such as solar panels or low-flow toilets, in the long run, the benefits outweigh the costs as less energy would be used to power a space.

As a sustainable interior designer, you have countless opportunities to create sustainable environments and increase awareness of sustainability.

Occupational Classification

Individuals employed as sustainable interior designers may be classified in one or more of the following occupational groupings:

NOC Code: 5242- Interior Designers and Interior Decorators

NOC Code: 2252- Industrial Designers

NOC Code: 5241- Graphic Designers and Illustrators

NOC Code: 2151- Architects

What is a NOC Code?

The National Occupation Classification (NOC) provides a standardized language for describing the work performed by Canadians in the labour market. It gives statisticians, labour market analysts, career counsellors, employers and individual job seekers a consistent way to collect data, describe and understand the nature of work within different occupations.

The NOC is developed and updated in partnership with Statistics Canada to coincide with the 5- year census cycles. It is based on in-depth occupational research and consultations conducted across Canada, to reflect changes in the Canadian labour market.