Sustainability frameworks have taken center stage in the design industry. But in the race to cut carbon emissions, are we leaving the human element behind?
This podcast explores key topics in the circular economy through the lens of design innovation and business strategy.
In this episode, we sit down with Ana Rita Martins, Sustainability Lead at MCM, who helps us decode the complex world of environmental and social certifications.
Recently, during our ECONYL® Academy webinar, we discussed how we need to look beyond just carbon emissions and understand what companies are concretely doing. For example, reducing raw material dependency, improving social impact and so on. Which brings us to my first question: What role do you think certifications play in advancing both the environmental and social aspects of the built environment? Can we judge the sustainability of a product, a project, or even a company by focusing on certification metrics only?
“Okay, so that’s a lot of questions to unpack, but fine. I think first, a lot of the conversations, you’re right, are focusing in the last years on the carbon emissions. But I just want to start by saying that there’s still a big lack of due diligence in the fit-out sector related to this. It is a very important focus, and there’s still a lot of work to do in accounting what’s the carbon impact within the materials we bring in our projects. And again, as designers, I always say this: this is our biggest impact. So that part is not solved. But also, it is so true this has to be way more holistically. I think the conversation about certifications tends to always happen. I really enjoy this conversation because there’s not a straight answer.
In the last ten years where I’ve been dealing with the certifications, there’s been a very big involving on why are they needed. Ten years ago they were really important because obviously that was the connection to sustainability. But again, I think there is a perception that certifications are quite, you know, ticking the boxes, quite bad. One thing I always say is if I have a certification within one of my projects—which is a fit-out sector, so it’s not a building and UK sector that goes through planning applications—in a fit-out sector, which I call a bit the underdog that it doesn’t have to really follow any restrictive legislation around sustainability, certifications play a huge role on allocating budget, allocating time, having a team that knows the word BREEAM and WELL. Contractually, and this is quite boring for the designers, but contractually you have penalties in order to actually not do the actions that you have to do as a project manager, as a contractor. So I enjoy that almost linear line of BREEAM has certain KPIs and goals on sustainability or WELL, and then has to be delivered by the end and that due diligence.
The thing that I always have to say, there’s a big “but” in there: certifications, as a lot of people that have done this kind of type of systems know, they are full of holes. And also there’s not one certification that will fulfill the holistic vision that you just described: the environmental, the carbon, the social, the well-being, the accessibility. So it’s really important that we actually say this out loud. They are, you know, a lot of them actually still need to be keeping up with the new kind of guidance out there. And so what I always say is sometimes clients nowadays actually tend to ask for a bespoke route. So you can bring all of those items that I just mentioned into almost an holistic approach. Other times, because we are a B Corp company, we actually tend to attract a lot of other corporate companies that want to align with those goals. So they are B Corp, or they want to tend to be much more in that kind of social space.
One of the things I want to bring is accountability is measurement. And then if there’s not a certification, how do you make sure the deliver complies? I guess that’s the bit boring part of what I do. But I actually really like that kind of time that you just have to comply, and then it’s not just a dot in time. There’s a lot about how you’re going to maintain, how are people going to feel in the building in long term. So I guess that’s my answer: it is true you cannot just judge just by the metrics, but you know, we need them, not just the stories.”
One thing I find interesting is that companies aren’t just evaluating products anymore. They are evaluating the values behind those products through criteria like human, earth, and social equity. What does that say about where design is headed, and what role do these social considerations play in the design process?
“Yeah, which is fair enough. I hope there’s lots of designers listening to this because, again, I try to make this all quite excited and not the other way around which is super analytic and then contractual and then you lose them. But then you get the other side as well, which is the project managers and the people that really also need to comply. But I guess you are totally right: what I call a responsible, considered, good quality design—and some people call it regenerative, which is the word that is quite often used now for that type of holistic approach on sustainability.
In my perspective, frankly, it’s not all about the environment. It’s linked completely to how we as humans are balancing that equation. The way it started for me, it wasn’t really on the environmental focus; it was actually in a much more deeper connection to evidence-based design. That’s something I always was quite interested in: how you can merge design and then evidence to back up your design decisions. I’ve always been quite passionate about why you are feeling sick within a building, and that’s actually a name NHS calls evidence-based design that could impact “sick building syndrome.” So that’s a syndrome where you will feel sick for some indicators that are within that space. I really understand how that can, you know, if you feel bad within a space that someone took a long time to design to look beautiful, but then the indicators—as I call them visible, invisible indicators like air quality, light quality, sensorial experience, the right functions, the right zones—that is what is actually going to make you feel good or bad as well.
It is a beautiful balance, and I think that’s what I bring a lot to the conversations we do in the design. It is about the invisible. You might not see it, but if you’re breathing a lot more liters of fresh air per minute, all of that will actually account for how you’re going to feel good. And that will play in things like sourcing for good food nutrition at your offices. How you actually going to find that balance between tech and restorative? How can you go away and have that away time? And then again, the biophilia and the tranquility that a space should really be offering for you to produce your best work. All of that is going to impact your physical and mental well-being.
That’s one part: well-being and health. But then the social equality that you just discussed, I find that that’s really important for me. I picked MCM to work for because they’ve been a B Corp for 5 years now, and that’s completely embedded within their corporate responsibility. My role is bridging that into how do we bring that to our projects. How do we bring that social impact? So what I can say to designers is really think about what materials you’re bringing on the table. Bring the right materials that are sourced for good, that are coming from the right enterprises. Be curious, not only supporting the big ones. Sometimes it’s the scale as well, but other times the small SMEs, the small charity or non-profit organizations are trying to really make an impact. So I guess that’s connecting your decisions beyond aesthetics, and making sure you have an impact on minimizing the footprint and, as I call it on the social side, the handprint as well.”
On LinkedIn, you beautifully describe yourself as the bridge between clients and complex technical sustainability frameworks. When you work with clients to simplify certifications like WELL or BREEAM, how do you help them see that investing in social impact, well-being, and accessibility is just as important and beneficial as cutting carbon emissions, for example?
“It’s a great question. I find that it’s quite often really hard to describe what I do. You have consultants that could produce lots of assessments within carbon, there’s the social value measured through the social value portal, and then there’s a lot of different expertise within a project. I describe myself as a bridge because when I work with a client—and they tend to be, by the way, the tenant end user, so a client that will move into a building and actually want to create the fit-out space that works best for them—my first approach is to sit with them and try to understand what is actually sustainability for them. What does that represent?
It will really play a different direction every time I sit with them. What I have to do is really listen to the stakeholder and understand what is there for them, but also making sure that they also know what’s the right impact to do. Ultimately, what they want to do is having their employees creating their best work. They really want to make sure they are supporting them to have less absenteeism, having more fulfillment at work. This correlates obviously with a big word that these days clients really are focusing on, which is retention and attraction of talent. That driver is a big, important one.
The other point that I always try to really make sure is opened is diversity. A diverse workforce is going to always create better work. You have different angles, you’re going to have so much richness. So you have to cater for these needs within a spatial strategy.
Another one that is one of my favorite ones—I don’t call it this in meetings—but obviously is the “professional FOMO.” Professional FOMO, which is obviously benchmarking, is really my best friend in rooms with clients and biggest stakeholders. Are they behind the curve? Are they ahead of the curve? Are they being pioneers? What are their competitors doing? No one wants to be the last one in a race. Sometimes most don’t want to be leading the way either, because it could be costly or bring some risk. But really driving them on where they are sitting and also who they want to be when they open the doors. They have this huge investment, and they’re going to open the doors maybe in 3, 5, 6 years. Who are they going to be? That tends to really help me in my difficult, complex discussions.”
You often participate to panels and discussions on very hot topics such as cost versus sustainability. So this is my hot topic question for you. When you sit down with developers or construction experts, how do you prove that choices aimed at circularity and resource efficiency make not just environmental sense, but solid business sense too?
“This question is what everyone wants to hear, right? How would you convince your clients to see the true value of what is a long-lasting sustainability thinking? Circularity has been discussed a lot across the past year, and I think the word to bring into a lot of my rooms is “long-term value”. A lot of our process within creating an office has been from design to delivery, and then that’s the dot in time and all of the teams go away. They cut the ribbon, they open the doors. But what actually matters is the evolution and the use of that space.
Not just what matters, but what matters a lot is that long term: the after use, the maintaining, how they’re going to use it, how they’re going to feel within the space, operating and energy perspective. Opening the door on discussions on how is that going to impact your workforce or your energy consumption over time is the long-term value I bring to the tables. Although I might not be there in that future, my project manager won’t be there, the contractor won’t be there… but the client will be there, and I think that really resonates with them.
The client is not just one face; they are actually multiple stakeholders. There are the facilities management that will be operating the building, there will be the strategy teams, there will be the sustainability teams that quite often are not the real estate teams. Connecting those dots and having the right people in those rooms to give them that information for long-term value is really important.
They also want to create a legacy. They have a public eye commitment, internal stakeholder commitment, they really want to create a lot of impact. That legacy point is really important. One of the items—and this might push away a bit of the designers, but I really think it’s such an important topic—is connecting OPEX versus CAPEX. This is about cost. OPEX is operating expenses on a day-to-day, and CAPEX is capital expenditures, which is a long-term investment of the asset. Bringing all of those buckets of cost for the client is really important. It might not connect directly to your job, but bringing those conversations will actually make a lot of sense for them and how they’re going to operate in time. So connect the dots. You’re doing a beautiful design, but if you connect the right dots for the client, that can really help in difficult conversations.”
