Our Commitment

Drake/Anderson is committed to using healthier materials and prioritizing circularity and equity in our designs. As the first luxury residential firm to commit to the Interior Pledge for Positive Impact and AIA Material Pledge, we are bringing this framework to high-end interiors, effectively bridging the sustainability gap in luxury interior design. By integrating innovative practices and sourcing responsibly, we are ensuring that our projects not only reflect the elegance and sophistication of our aesthetics, but also contribute positively to the environment and society. Our approach emphasizes collaboration with artisans and suppliers who share our values, fostering a community dedicated to sustainable craftsmanship. Through our designs, we aim to inspire clients and the industry to embrace purpose-driven design, demonstrating that luxury can be a meaningful force of change in the world.

Our Evolution

As our firm evolves and continuously seeks innovation, we are exploring new ways to express our creativity and elevate the level of service we provide to our clients. Our designs are informed by attentiveness to the world around us, and we are dedicated to creating a positive impact now and for future generations. We are expanding our understanding of beauty, discovering opportunities that surpass our previous imaginings. This evolution has transformed our role as designers, aligning our practices with the principles of circularity, health, and equity. By making a conscious choice to embrace these values, we believe we are creating a new standard of luxury that is meaningful, responsible, and enriching.

Our Framework

Our standards inform every project guiding our processes with resulting interiors that are as healthy as they are beautiful and functional. The driving framework that impacts all decisions is rooted in four impact categories that makeup the Common Materials Framework: Human Health, Climate & Ecosystem Health, Circular Economy and Social Equity.

When we spend 90% of our lives indoors where air pollutants are 2–5x more concentrated than outdoors, healthy interiors are non-negotiable.¹

We’re urging the industry to eliminate the ‘worst of the worst’ chemicals by taking the significant step to not allow Red-List Chemicals in our scope of work. Scientifically identified as the worst class of chemicals known to human and planetary health, Red-List chemicals are all too commonly found in traditional interior products. The building industry is the largest end market for chemicals, larger than electronics, agriculture and household chemicals combined.²

We support the health of people and the planet by adhering to our Red-List Free Specification Standard circulated to all partners and vendors outlining healthier product guidance.

We’re committed to phasing out reliance on Red-List Chemicals most often found in interiors such as PVC, perfluorinated and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFA, PFOA, PFCs), phthalates, toxic heavy metals, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and more.

For the last decade, experts have pinpointed architecture as a pivotal driver of the building industry’s colossal carbon emissions that devastate our climate and drain the world’s finite resources. A critical impact of life cycle calculations has been left out of the larger conversation: The role of interior design. According to LMN Architect’s 2019 Tenant Improvements Embodied Carbon Study, interior renovations can account for roughly 50% of a building’s total embodied carbon over its lifetime, impacting our climate and ecosystems substantially more than ever imagined. Drake/Anderson is committed to changing the climate impact of interiors by working with materials that are ecologically restorative, bioregional, repurposed and responsibly sourced across our scope with special attention to high embodied carbon material categories.

Our firm believes good design lasts forever, but not forever in a landfill. We support the design movement to embrace a circular economy by prioritizing pieces that consider entire lifecycle impact, eliminate pollution as well as regenerate nature. With our reclaimed sourcing practice, custom partnerships trained in making healthy heirlooms and material waste diversion program, we’re able to keep materials in use and out of landfills.

With community as one of our core pillars, we understand that interiors are labors of love, crafted by an extensive network that we strive to uplift. We do not take lightly the fact that the building industry is the second most at-risk sector for forced labor exploitation worldwide. That’s why we prioritize partnerships with vendors and makers who secure human rights across their supply chains by committing to transparency and creating positive social impacts for their workers and the communities they operate in.

Our Healthy Materials Library

The beauty of our materials goes beyond mere aesthetics and functionality. We have thoughtfully curated a library of healthy materials that focus on luxury design. Each material is meticulously sourced, researched, and rigorously vetted through three categories of action all while reflecting the firm’s aesthetic.

Transparency. All materials require content disclosure documentation and life cycle impact data submitted through formal channels and in-house data vetting that requires annual transparency updating from ongoing partners. Additionally, we meet innovative vendors where they are that do not have industry level disclosures to attain transparency documentation or identify alternative material substitutions.

Red-List Chemicals and High Embodied Carbon. When it comes to the ‘worst of the worst chemicals’ for human and planetary health, we avoid the inclusion of Red-List Chemicals commonly found in interior products. Similarly to the health of our climate, we proceed with extreme caution in sourcing from the highest climate impact material categories to eliminate unnecessary high carbon emissions in our interiors.

Interior design has previously been excluded from larger sustainability industry conversation due to the wide amount of products and furniture without any impact data. We support manufacturers committed to transforming the building product industry and creating a healthier, more equitable, less polluting industry for the planet. We uplift vendors with relevant certifications and third-party verification such as HPDs, EPDs and Declare Labels that help reduce greenwashing.

Join us on the forefront to create healthier, regenerative and more equitable interiors.

 

Resources

 

References

  1. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 1989. Report to Congress on indoor air quality: Volume 2. EPA/400/1-89/001C. Washington, DC.
  2. United Nations. (n.d.). (rep.). Global Chemicals Outlook II – From Legacies to Innovative Solutions: Implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, (p. 69).