Closing the loop

As designers and manufacturers, we hold a firm belief in our duty to ensure that our products are environmentally responsible, from sourcing sustainable materials to implementing efficient recycling and reusing practices. To uphold this principle, we have established protocols and guidelines that shape our decision-making and conduct.

Our approach to sustainability embraces circularity, which shifts away from the traditional linear model of make, use, and dispose. Instead, we adopt a circular design framework that integrates the disposal phase into the creation of new products. Our strategies revolve around the core principles of the three R’s—reduce, reuse, and recycle—examining how we can minimise waste generation and creatively repurpose materials to extend their lifecycle.

One of the key ways we design for circularity is through the use of recycled material. All of our products contain a percentage of recycled polyester fibre, dictated by the level of acoustic absorption required. We aim to include as much recycled content as possible without compromising the acoustic performance of the product. This is why you’ll see some products with a minimum of 80% recycled content, and others with 60%. In compliance with ISO 14021:2016, our sustainability team calculates the amount of recycled polyester used in our products twice a year, ensuring our claims are accurate and up-to-date.

We recognise the importance of the materials at our disposal, which is why our team is continuously striving to expand the potential of these materials. We refuse to accept ‘good enough’ and remain committed to revolutionising sustainable manufacturing and design practices. Our efforts are focused on creating solutions that embrace genuine circularity, meeting the urgent need in the construction sector to address waste management. Achieving this goal requires collaboration across our industry rather than the efforts of a single organisation. By partnering with our peers, we can transform our approach to design, rethink our material choices, and optimise waste utilisation

We aim to minimise waste trimmings as much as possible by optimising material use in our designs, however, with current technology some waste is inevitable.

Recognising that we could influence the amount of waste our products created during production, we conducted rigorous testing and research to create a bespoke solution. The result was an industry-first technology that transforms acoustic panel trimmings into PET pellets that can then be moulded into new accessory products.

By introducing this chipper into our process, we can now operate a zero-waste manufacturing line. Since the installation of our machine in May 2022, 250,000 kgs of material have been repurposed into new products. Through regular upgrades and R&D, we expect to increase our recycling capacity significantly each year.