How would you describe HØLTE’s approach to sustainability?

What we’ve discovered is that there aren’t any magical materials or processes that can make our designs sustainable. One of the fundamental issues is that we need systemic change in how people generally think about furniture in their homes, about the building of homes, and our overall attitude toward stuff. There needs to be this quite quick revolution.

The globalisation that happened throughout the twentieth century, and the postwar boom in material goods, has had such a heavy influence on our expectations of products. We need to remember how to own something, care for it, refurbish it and pass it on. It feels like everyone needs to be re-educated; it was only 100 years ago that things were done very differently. I’m concerned that we’re never going to be able to realise the rate of re-education that we need to achieve this.

Where would you say this attitude to consumption has come from?

As a generation, we were born into an era of greed over need, a heyday of over-availability of stuff and convenience. The people who lived through the Second World War still worried about things like waste, but our parents were born into a generation who were excited by the prospect of all of these new products, and they were made in materials like plastic. It was a whole new world where you could buy anything you liked when you wanted it.

Companies like IKEA have flourished in this culture. Some elements of IKEA’s structure are quite sustainable; the fact that they minimise their use of materials is a classic sustainable design strategy. But, they also do it to make themselves as cost-efficient as possible. IKEA has great ambitions to be fully circular and to be climate-positive by 2030, but inherently their whole model is built on quick, easy, cheap solutions. It goes against all of the logical pillars of sustainability – to have something that is good quality, and to own it for longer. Unfortunately, in the world that we live in, that’s not necessarily accessible to everybody. It shouldn’t be a privilege to be able to afford to buy an expensive bed for life that you can also pass on to your children. We need to have versions of that for every kind of economic situation; every person needs to have access to sustainable design.

What action has HØLTE been taking to offer a more sustainable kitchen product?

Our first port of call was to be transparent to our customers; we should be honest with the customer and tell it like it is. We began by measuring our CO2E emissions in conjunction with MÅLBAR, a Danish company offering a carbon accountability tool for design companies. I think we now have a database of over 2000 products for which we know the CO2E emissions. There were several things we came across, including that the materials that we use now to make furniture and fitted kitchens are inherently unsustainable. It’s highly processed board material that is designed to be as efficient as possible in terms of cost and weight but the processes used to make the boards are high emission, and they’re produced in factories which burn lots of fossil fuels.

If we want to carry on making furniture in this way, there are systemic changes needed. Raw materials need to be sourced close to the factory, the factory should be running on 100% renewable energy, and it should be using low-energy production processes. Factories also need to be using lower VOC resins and ensure pollution-free waste streams. Finally, you need to think about end of life – there needs to be infrastructure there to take materials back into the production stream and start all over again. It’s circularity, essentially, and that to me is the only answer to being able to provide these products to the masses.

Unfortunately, we have to wait for the manufacturers to do the work so that we can then benefit. And that’s the same for everyone in the chain. At the moment, a lot of the pressure is on the general population. It’s asking consumers things like ‘eat less red meat’, ‘don’t fly’, and ‘buy an electric car’. All these pressures are on us the consumers, but there needs to be a huge change at source.

There’s a lot of discussion and innovation happening around sustainable material alternatives at the moment. Did you uncover any other more sustainable materials to work with?

Unfortunately, we found that more sustainable or lower-emission materials were either more expensive and/or less durable. And it’s not like the other options are perfect either. A timber kitchen primarily made from solid wood needs a lot of care and maintenance – it will not just repel coffee! People always ask about sustainable worktops but they are unfortunately inherently unsustainable; they’re all made from horrendous materials, to offer properties such as scratch, stain and heat-resistance.

One of the big things that we have come to realise is that everything needs to be a part of the circular economy. It would mean that the carbon embodied in materials would be seen as an asset. We as a company would take custody of that carbon and look after it, using every bit of it that we could, and any waste would go back into the company’s manufacturing stream again. Our whole treatment of our stuff needs to change, as well as our expectations of those materials over time.

What hopes do you have for our material future, and what plans does HØLTE have?

The biggest hope is that our designs will have longevity. But, as consumers, everyone talks about buying a home and putting a stamp on it, which means removing what’s there, and it’s that that is damaging.

We’d love to be able to set up a modular system where customers who are moving home could bring part of their kitchens back, and possibly buy different new elements to complete their kitchen. Alternatively, we would send materials back to the manufacturer so that they could go back into the product stream. We want to build more of that circularity into this product range. We also really like the idea of repurposing; for example, you might have a pantry cabinet that could be repurposed into a wardrobe. It will hopefully become more common to have a local joiner that could do this for you.

We’ve also been working on an entirely new product, which is a freestanding kitchen. There are quite a lot of companies doing it already in Europe, and I’m pleased to see it is now emerging as a concept in the UK. Our idea is to go back to the model that predates the freestanding kitchens of the 1920s and is instead based on pieces of furniture. For people who have the space, it would be a much more sustainable way to buy kitchen furniture.

It’s that idea of heirloom furniture that can be passed down through the generations. We need to be focused on creating modern heirlooms as standard; items that people will feel good about having for a very long time. There’s no reason why we can’t create a contemporary version. For example, if you look at the furniture brand Vitsœ, they have been around for decades, but their shelving system still looks modern – it’s a coveted system. There are people whose parents bought it in the 60s or 70s and who have passed it down to them. It’s amazing that you can do that; why can’t you do that with contemporary furniture?

There will always be a place for fitted kitchens; I think the spaces we’ll inhabit in the future will probably become even smaller, so you’ll always need that space-saving efficiency that fitted kitchens afford. But, while we work on finding more circular materials and wait for manufacturers to do their bit, we thought we could focus on another solution. Our customers could potentially buy something freestanding that they could care for, take to their next home, or pass on to the next generation.