Exclusive Interview with Cat Hoad

We had the pleasure to interview Cat Hoad, Founder and Director of Absolute Project Management and a Founding Member of Interior Design Declares.

Interior Design Declares is a pledge by any individual/company of interior designers or their suppliers to do better from a sustainability – do no harm to the environment and the earth – point of view. It was set up in March 2021 by 9 founding signatories, who are generally small companies that were interested in promoting sustainability in the design industry. The signatories are formed by individuals who are donating their time and resources while running their own businesses and working – there is no big company behind IDD funding them. Their mission to spreading the awareness of their pledge continues!

IDD is part of an umbrella movement called Built Environment Declares, which is a wider built environment industry pledge. Those who set up Built Environment Declares want to encourage people in the industry to be aware of the need to be more sustainable and make that pervade all of their businesses and practices, as they realised that this industry produces around 40% of the UK’s carbon footprint for year. There are a few strands under this umbrella, among them: Architects Declare and IDD. Architects Declare was set up before IDD and has now developed an important network of Architectural practices pledged to the declaration.

Cat has two pieces of advice for any interior designers interested in pledging to the IDD:
The idea of being more environmentally friendly should pervade everything you do- not only in your designs but inform your clients of sustainable options.
Anything that you can do better is an improvement on not doing anything – even if your client only chooses one small sustainable solution, it is already better than not raising the subject at all and having none of it.

If you are an Interior Designer, please sign up to their pledge on their website and provide your knowledge and expertise to the IDD so we can all help the planet!

For further information on sustainable solutions for interior design and project management, please contact info@absoluteprojectmanagement.com.