By attending Sustainable Design Summit, in just one day, you will come away with actionable insights, practical solutions, and sustainability wins to take into your next design project.
The 2023 summit featured a core programme of plenary sessions running throughout the day on the main stage, with an alternative option to participate in one of two concurrent breakout sessions, all of which were CPD-certified.
Download the Delegate Programme. Alternatively, view the full session breakdown and speaker line-up of 2023 below.
Tuesday 28 November
Arrival, Networking Breakfast, & Product Showcase
Opening Keynote - Progress, leadership, and transparency through the supply chain
- What kind of future do we want to see and therefore design for?
- Conscious decision-making regarding the alignment of strategy and action, and how to integrate them
- Experiences of applying lessons from the FlyZero framework
- Life cycle assessments, circularity, end of life and designing out waste
- Reducing GHG emissions, and broadening the view to include other environmental impacts e.g. climate change, waste, water, biodiversity
- Sustainability reporting is soon to be mandatory – how can the numbers support the business case?
- Scaling sustainability
Plenary 1 - Understanding your emissions: What are your numbers really telling you?
What do the numbers tell us, and how can we use those to improve? In this session, panellists share their thoughts on - what’s really sustainable and how can we get there? And how can the numbers drive sustainable design?
- What numbers are we capturing and what are we measuring?
- How are we using those numbers – internally, reporting, managing supply chain, for continuous improvements, benchmarking and future-proofing?
- How can we improve on standardising information we are both requesting and sharing in relation to environmental impacts and products performance?
- Moving from average category calculations to actual figures from factories/ suppliers
- Key lessons, insights, and valuable tools
Breakout 1 - Materials innovation & collaboration in the supply chain
Innovation in materials and products for use in cruise, aircraft, and hotel interiors plays a critical role in achieving sustainable interior spaces.
This workshop explores:
- Proven methodologies around evaluation and benchmarking materials
- Environmental impact assessments - how best to recycle bio-sourced materials?
- Factors which impact material health
- Considerations for identifying where you can make the biggest difference
This workshop will be led by a front of room facilitator who will share their expertise and experiences in sustainable design. A roundtable format will enable cross-sector conversations. Feedback and takeaways will be co-ordinated by the facilitator.
Breakout 2 - Hotel Interiors: Developing targets and directing owners towards sustainable design
This breakout will look at ways of garnering owner buy-in to sustainability goals and best practice for collaborating across the supply chain.
Topics for discussion include:
• Empowering the specifiers to inform ownership groups in the drive towards sustainable design
• Life cycle cost modelling
• Extended product responsibility for fully circular design
• Product as a service
This workshop will be led by a front of room facilitator who will share their expertise and experiences in sustainable design. A roundtable format will enable cross-sector conversations. Feedback and takeaways will be co-ordinated by the facilitator.
Networking Lunch & Product Showcase
Plenary 2 - Winning over hearts and minds: How can we bring our customers with us?
- Transparency, greenwashing, and storytelling - how to avoid empty or misleading marketing speak?
- Managing guest expectations - are standards too high?
- Where’s the balance: how do we define a sustainable product?
- Ten tips for communicating with guests before and during travel
Breakout 3 - Data, transparency, and tangible actions - Your next steps are easier than you think
Regulatory change is happening. The design community needs to understand how data can ensure that you are complying and how they can simultaneously open up business opportunities. Attend this session to ensure that you know what, why, and how when it comes to measuring and reporting. And learn from our sustainability experts how you can deploy the data to maximise the value of the materials you own.
- Developing a holistic approach: sustainability as an essential part of business, not just reacting to the legislation as something you have to report on
- What are the clear operational steps your organisation needs to take to meet mandatory reporting requirements? How can going beyond compliance make economic sense?
- What work processes are needed to enable life cycle asset management?
- How can data & transparency steer you away from greenwashing? And why is it important?
This workshop will be led by front of room facilitators who will share their expertise and experiences in sustainable design. A roundtable format will enable cross-sector conversations. Feedback and takeaways will be co-ordinated by the facilitators.
Breakout 4 - Cruise Interiors: Collaborating with stakeholders on environmental opportunities
This sector breakout will cover the three key segments of the Sustainable Maritime Interiors Declaration (SMI declaration) – environmental advocacy, environmental action, and environmental future.
Attend this session to learn and discuss:
- Lessons from current case study examples of cross-discipline collaborations which are producing good environmental outcomes in cruise interiors
- What are the easy wins, biggest wins, and medium to long-term challenges and opportunities?
- How to identify what's within our control to move the needle - instead of waiting for legislation to dictate the next steps?
- How can the SMI declaration be used as a simple framework for continuous improvement, on both internal projects and on pilots?
This workshop will be led by front of room facilitators who will share their expertise and experiences in sustainable design. A roundtable format will enable collaborative conversations amongst the different stakeholders in the cruise interiors sector. Feedback and takeaways will be co-ordinated by the facilitators.
Networking Break & Product Showcase
Plenary 3 - Regulations and legislation – How to navigate the rules and still produce sustainable products?
- Balancing rules which promote guest safety with (sometimes conflicting) sustainability goals
- Using regulation to influence for incentives vs mandates
- How to leverage Environmental Product Declaration (EPDs) for commercial benefit?
- What's the role of extended producer responsibilities?
- Circular design, the net zero transition and the role of remanufacturing, repair and recycling in closing the loop
- The Critical Raw Materials Act: What is the impact on material sourcing, disassembly, decommissioning and disposal?
- What are the new reporting requirements in the Net Zero Industry Act?
- What are the impacts of the new regulatory environment on the supply chain for interiors projects?
- How can designers adapt thinking and design better in order to reduce the risks?
- Working with suppliers to understand your carbon footprint
Speakers:

Breakout 5 - Materials, manufacturing, and design - The key 3 elements of lifespan planning
This workshop examines three key elements of lifespan planning – materials, manufacturing processes, and the design process itself.
- Critical questions which this workshop will address:
- What are the considerations and steps to increase lifespan planning?
- What are the processes, practices, and infrastructure which support recycling and re-purposing?
- How can designers balance environmental outcomes – when does product upcycling stop being the environmentally friendly choice?
- Using lifecycle assessments as a tool for continuous improvement
This workshop will be led by a front of room facilitator who will share their expertise and experiences in sustainable design. A roundtable format will enable cross-sector conversations. Feedback and takeaways will be co-ordinated by the facilitator.
Breakout 6 - Aircraft Interiors: Common goals and collaboration in cabin interiors
This sector breakout will examine the common goals across the aircraft interiors community. The breakout facilitators will engage attendees in an open discussion around best practices and provide examples of science-based targets and supply chain collaboration.
- Aircraft interiors: understanding common goals and sharing best practices
- Case study - sustainability commitments, CO2 and water consumption reductions, and collaborations & partnerships
- Improving circularity metrics, and developing industry practices which make a positive impact on sustainable cabin interiors
- Assessing environmental impact - using LCA methodology and science-based approaches to develop EPDs
This workshop will be led by front of room facilitators who will share their expertise and experiences in sustainable design. A roundtable format will enable collaborative conversations amongst the different stakeholders in the aircraft interiors sector. Feedback and takeaways will be co-ordinated by the facilitators.
Closing Keynote - From collaboration to impact: Developing approaches and next steps
- Knowledge sharing as a foundation for improved sustainability outcomes
- Maximising resource efficiencies through partnership working
- Building expertise and infrastructure for better life cycle planning
- Creating value for everyone
- Exploring the opportunities of standardising approaches within and across cruise, hotel, and aircraft interiors sectors