How to Make Your Home More Sustainable, According to Design Experts

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If you’re anything like me, the word “sustainability” can be fraught with anxiety. It’s something I deeply want to embrace, especially more in my home with my family. Yet I find myself getting overwhelmed with where to start, then feeling paralyzed about by skepticism over whether or not my actions will make a difference.

For a little more perspective on this, I recently interviewed three design experts on how we can live more sustainably in our homes. One of my biggest questions had to do with circularity, one of the biggest buzzwords in sustainability these days.

Circular design is already huge in the fashion and apparel industries, where companies like ThredUp, an online consignment and thrift store, have made buying and selling secondhand clothing fun and easy, and brands like Bode have elevated upcycling vintage garments into a high art. I wanted to know what circularity looks like when designing a home—and when manufacturing products for home design.

To find out more, I asked Laura Hodges, an interior designer with an eponymous boutique design firm and retail shop, Domain, in the Baltimore/Washington, DC area, to share with me how her design firm approaches the idea of circularity when working with clients.

“There’s a phrase, ‘cradle to cradle,’ which means once a product is actually created, it can go on to be something else,” said Hodges. At the start of each project, Hodges assesses what her clients already have that could be used for something else. “This can be anything from looking at what furniture we could reuse and reupholster to reusing materials to build something else.”

I’ll be exploring how the home design industry can more fully embrace circularity during a panel discussion I am moderating with Hodges, Patricia Bell, a professor of industrial design at the Savannah College of Art and Design, and Amanda Cimaglia, Vice President, ESG & Corporate Affairs at The AZEK Company, which makes sustainable outdoor living products, including TimberTech decking and railing, AZEK Trim and StruXure pergolas.

The panel is part of Hearst’s Eco-Conscious Living Summit on Friday, April 26, during which editors and industry leaders will discuss sustainable innovations and solutions across a range of topics, from circularity in design to regenerative farming, electrification, deforestation, clean beauty, sustainable design, and more. You can find more information and tune in live to the summit April 26 from 12-2 p.m. EST here.

In the meantime, Hodges, Bell and Cimaglia shared with me five easy steps to living more sustainably at home.

Stay super organized.

“It’s a big help to know what products you already have at home, so you don’t rebuy things you have lost or forgotten about, and so you don’t let things go to waste,” says Bell. Choosing soaps or other products that have refillable container options also helps to reduce waste.

Make simple product swaps when it’s time to replace something.

“I love to think about baby steps towards living a more sustainable lifestyle, like considering a more sustainable product swap when you run out of something,” says Hodges. “For example, instead of plastic items, you could consider biodegradable and recycled materials like beeswax wraps, bamboo or recyclable electrical toothbrushes (I love Suri), natural deodorant, and powdered detergents instead of plastic pouches.”

Update old furnishings with sustainable accessories.

“You can easily refresh your space with new accessories, like replacing throw pillows instead of getting rid of an old couch and purchasing a new one,” says Cimaglia.

Find a good home for your castoffs.

One way to give your old furnishings new life is to find a good next home for them—but the key is to make sure the recipient will really use the pieces. “Donating old furnishings or home décor is a great way to give these items a second life, benefiting others in need and reducing demand for new products,” says Cimaglia.

Start composting.

“You can cut your waste down by about half each week, and there are even companies who will pick it up for you,” says Hodges. "Plus, composting makes your plants so happy,” adds Bell.

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