An eco-friendly aesthetic can tell your customers where your priorities lie and promote the values of your brand. It can help them to invest and align themselves with your business, but where do you start?
A lot of the inspiration around creating an eco friendly interior look comes off quite bland or colourless. In this guide, we’re going to give you the foundational tips on how you can create your own sustainably styled commercial space, office, shop or salon that you can add pieces of brand personality to.
Keep Your Materials Natural
Natural doesn’t necessarily mean neutral!!!
Of course, the biggest pieces of furniture or anything that occupy large amounts of space in your room will contribute hugely to its overall look and feel. If you’re aiming for an eco-friendly vibe, it’s important that the large items are natural materials, for example reclaimed wooden desks or display tables, industrial-style metal shelving and stone or natural tiled countertops.
You should then look to accessorise this with other natural materials that suit the style but also have a function. Afterall, you don’t want to fill your commercial space with decor that you have no room left for business and the things you need.
Use amber glass bottles to hold small items, or metal, wall mounted soap dispensers to offer hand sanitiser, or even exposed edison-style light bulbs. All these items are in keeping with the look you’re trying to achieve but will not interrupt the way you do business or take up valuable space.
For inspiration on using natural, small storage in your industrial setting, look to businesses such as Lush cosmetics or anyone who has a very well known reputation for being conscious. Lush use brown paper and natural wooden crates to hold and display their beautiful products. It works so well with their aesthetic, business values and also allows the products to speak for themselves.
Style With Plants & Greenery
Let the outside in!
Using plant life in your commercial space, whether it’s a cafe, salon, or shop, will promote a natural freshness to the atmosphere. You don’t have to create a jungle but placing 3 – 4 carefully chosen plants around the space will bring the natural world into your business.
Be Careful With Your Lighting
It’s typical in commercial spaces to use bright, harsh fluorescent lighting, either in spotlights or strip bulb forms. They’re used because they shed a lot of light over large spaces, however, they’re not flattering or at all in keeping with an eco-friendly design.
Bright is always best of course, but only in the sense of natural lighting. Wherever possible, try to make this a priority or to emphasise natural lighting throughout the space by using mirrors. If fluorescent or white-light bulbs are unavoidable for you, make sure they’re even across the space (this will avoid a going-out-of-business vibe) and then layer with warmer hued lamps and interest bulbs. This will be particularly easy to achieve in offices, studios or service based businesses. It can be a little trickier when it comes to retail spaces, but the most important thing to do is to find quality bulbs that aren’t excessively white or blue in their hue.
Use Natural Floors and Decorate
Natural flooring means using a natural looking material. Think slate, wood, stone.
Of course, all of these materials can be extremely expensive, using a replica or made-to-look-like material will be equally effective.
You can then choose to cover or to augment the large surface area with colour and rugs if you choose. Natural and interest textiles don’t have to be neutral to be natural or eco-friendly!
