Nutcreatives comes after observing, back in 2007-2008, that from the collaboration between a designer and an environmentalist – or what amounts to the same thing, between sustainability and design – innovative projects emerged and results far superior to all the others. levels to which they were achieved if the two disciplines worked separately. This also aligned the projects we carried out with values ​​with which we felt very identified. From an informal collaboration a company emerged that has become what Nutcreatives is today.

Urban design is a little far away for me, since I haven’t done much work nor was I able to finish my studies on the subject (Nutcreatives absorbed me too much). However, the city context seemed and seems essential to me to improve our impact on the planet. As for multidisciplinarity, I think it is directly the solution. Rethinking our model is a complex problem, and that is why the solution will never come from a single discipline. We absolutely need all visions rowing in the same direction and learning to collaborate with each other, from science, to engineering, design, business vision, public management and even communication, since without consumers who understand what The thing that is proposed to them does not work. At Nutcreatives we have always seen this as something central to our daily life and that it adds a lot of value, we really enjoy having very diverse profiles and collaborating with them.

Explaining to them that if you don’t change, your context changes and you will be left behind. There is a growing number of citizens, consumers and clients who demand transparency and that the impacts that occur be improved, not to mention regulatory frameworks that are increasingly strict and to which we must adapt. There are also many initiatives of all kinds that propose an alternative model and are having great success, which shows that doing things well is not suicide, but rather improves results.

I’d say it’s almost a 50-50. We need a strong base of technical knowledge, materials, environmental impacts, etc. and we must be able to find solutions to the challenges we detect, and creativity is key there. I do not believe in technology as an automatic solution to all our problems, nor that it will destroy our professions or our way of doing things. All these technologies are tools with enormous potential, we must understand them and have judgment to know how to integrate them into our day so that they add to our work, without making us lose focus on the problems we are trying to solve.

All sectors are in a moment of transformation, including furniture. It goes by neighborhoods, but I notice a growing interest in the spaces we live in and how they are furnished, so I think the sector has room for growth. Circularity here is a clear challenge, also marked by the EU, the percentage of furniture that ends up in a landfill or incinerated is excessive, between 80 and 90% according to some reports, and this is not an acceptable percentage.

This is good news, although it will certainly be a tough process for some companies to adapt to it. In general, when we buy a piece of furniture, clothing or an appliance we have very little information about what we are purchasing: the price, its appearance, some basic technical data and little else. We do not know how it was manufactured, what environmental impact it generates, or where it comes from, beyond a “Made in” that provides insufficient information. We must move towards models where information is offered in a fair and balanced way to consumers, so that they make the best possible purchasing decisions.

There are countries where we all know that the demand for sustainability is greater than the rest, central Europe, Scandinavia… there is a cultural part, another for having basic needs well covered and being able to open up to other concerns. This unfortunately does not imply that they are zero-impact societies, but they do set the bar somewhat higher than the rest. However, the important thing is that this transformation reaches everywhere in the fairest way possible. Surely it is still insufficient, but I love seeing how progress is made in Latin American or Asian countries; there are also those who are understanding that improving their impacts generates benefits at all levels.

Sustainability is a good selling point, and many companies try to take advantage of it without making the necessary transformations. That is very dangerous, because it is very difficult for a consumer to distinguish what is in the correct line from greenwashing, with the result that the term has become tainted and is of little use. In general, I am more in favor of explaining what is done in the most transparent way possible, without the need to use adjectives such as ecological or sustainable, and letting an informed consumer decide if something is worth it or not.

A very intense year awaits us! If all goes well, home accessories that we have designed will go on the market, we are going to start on a sectoral ecodesign guide that we have been commissioned to do, we will have a lot of training and consulting… and we will continue developing new pieces for Suru, the new furniture brand and lighting in which we lead the direction and product development.

I have to admit that I am more urbanite than I would like. However, I notice that I need to escape to nature more and more and that lately trees charge my batteries much more than buildings, age I guess! Without going any further, in Barcelona we have Collserola, a beautiful green lung that we should all know and take care of, and to which we have often turned our backs. The challenge is to ensure that areas like Collserola have the best possible health and that they colonize the city, and not the other way around.