141 There are so many conversations going on about how to innovate and make future products circular – we still have a way to go but the signs are promising.” But what criteria should sustainable products be measured against? For Nguyen, the designers and manufacturers need to have a sustainable strategy, and the products need to be beautiful and durable, pass International Maritime Organization (IMO) certification and be available at an affordable price. “There are a lot of products on the market that check all four boxes, however, there needs to be more to add variety and inspiration for designers,” she says. “I also feel that vendors and designers haven’t quite grasped the importance of circularity.” Circularity, for Nguyen, means a product was made and designed to go back into the ecosystem with no end of life, and no landfill waste. One project that perfectly embodies this circularity model is from textile manufacturer Testori, which created an IMO-approved wall covering containing 70 per cent recycled content. Testori is now working with Holland America on a take-back programme, developing a product that can be put back into the industry – this involves reprocessing the wall covering and repurposing the textile waste. While success stories are becoming more common in the maritime industry, challenges do remain. “People still have a ‘wait and see’ mindset,” says Nguyen. “They start off with the assumption that a sustainable product is more expensive. Ironically, if we are all demanding similar things, the price goes down, so I encourage everyone to tell vendors that this is a priority in the design specification process. When there’s demand, vendors will respond! “I have found there are two main ways to address sustainable interior design: one, the choices we make now affect how quickly a product goes into landfill, and two, the discussions we have with vendors affect whether they will invest their design and development with circularity in mind.” Nguyen believes passenger ship interior designers will play a crucial role in driving the move to circularity. “As designers, one of our responsibilities is to influence others with our vision of how an environment should be shaped,” she says. “Vendors rely on our preferences to get specified, so if we care about sustainable material, we should demand it from our vendors. If we are consistent in telling vendors that we are more interested in products that have a circularity strategy, then I’m confident more vendors will start to shift what they sell to cater towards our demands. “The best way to start is to have an open conversation with vendors that you consider partners and ask about the potential of doing something impactful together.” Holland America, for example, partnered with Andriali to explore how the textile mill could reduce textile waste. “It started with us saying it would be amazing if we could keep our textiles out of landfill and instead turn that waste into something that would be desirable for the industry,” says Nguyen. “Andriali was inspired by the comment and took the idea to the next level. Since the company owns a textile mill, Andriali has full control of the vertical process, so their team reached out to its connections and the Turkish government to work out how it could take waste back to the mill and explore what it could be turned into. “At our end, we told our story to the guest experience and onboard revenue departments to get them excited about the idea of taking our textile waste, melting down the fibres and turning them into a new material that can be sewn into something usable for our ships.” FEATURE “ If we care about sustainable material, we should demand it from our vendors” Textile manufacturer Testori, which created a wall covering solution with 70 per cent recycled content, is working with Holland America to reprocess the wall covering and repurpose the textile waste
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