With environmental concerns becoming increasingly important within specifications, designers need to make sure that every aspect of a building is carefully considered and adheres to a project’s sustainability goals. Dulux Decorator Centre is committed to upholding sustainable standards and supporting its partners to reduce environmental impact. In this article, its commercial sustainability manager, Duncan Lochhead, discusses how sustainability can be achieved with the right paints and coatings.
The built environment is responsible for more than a quarter of the UK’s total greenhouse gas emissions, and this must be reduced if the UK is to reach net zero by 2050. To do this, low-carbon building materials must be selected across every aspect of a building, right down to the paint used on the walls.
One of the biggest environmental concerns in the paint industry is the use of solvents and the emission of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs). VOCs are chemical vapours that are greenhouse gases - and therefore contribute to global warming, as well as impacting ground level pollution.
While emissions from VOCs in decorative paint represents a small percentage of the UK’s overall pollutants (1% in the UK), they still increase environmental impact and negatively affect indoor air quality. To avoid this, it is recommended that water-based paints and coatings are used- such as the beautifully aesthetic Dulux Trade Diamond Satinwood for wood and metal surfaces and ultra-low VOC content paint for walls and ceilings - to achieve a professional finish and improve sustainability.
Recent innovations like the reformulated Dulux Trade Diamond Matt are a perfect example. This product provides the industry with a durable solution that is also 99.9% VOC free (based on in-can VOC content, measured in accordance with ISO 11890-2:2013). It therefore has lower impact on indoor air quality and the overall carbon footprint of a project when compared with the previous formulation. For added reassurance that it delivers sustainability benefits, Dulux Trade Diamond Matt is compliant with green building accreditations BREEAM and LEED.
Paints and coatings play a vital role in cutting carbon emissions over a building’s lifetime thanks to their ability to preserve buildings and prevent the need for regular redecoration work. Opting for durable products like Dulux Trade Diamond Matt and Dulux Trade Scuffshield Matt will therefore extend maintenance cycles thanks to their ability to withstand daily wear and tear.
Dulux Trade Scuffshield Matt is a tough, water-based matt emulsion paint that contains ultimate scuff resistant technology. It is perfect for use in high traffic areas such as corridors, stairwells and hallways, and busy commercial spaces and is designed to protect walls against scuff marks left behind from items such as shoes and bags, to help keep surfaces looking good for longer. It is also cleanable and offers good stain resistance.
In addition, Dulux Trade Diamond Matt is compliant with BS EN ISO 11998 Class 1 and BS 7719 Class C and can withstand 10,000 scrubs (the equivalent of five hours non-stop scrubbing). It also resists water-based stains like red wine and coffee, as well as oil-based stains such as food or cosmetics. It can be repeatedly cleaned and scrubbed, ensuring that unwanted stains can be easily removed without damaging the paint film on the wall, making the professional finish last even longer.
Products like Dulux Trade Evolve Matt that are made using recycled content are also worth considering. Dulux Trade Evolve Matt contains 35% recycled content and does not compromise on coverage or finish. It is available in white, making it the ideal choice for ceilings or to create neutral backdrops.
In addition to product, designers should also think about the additional benefits offered by a supplier. Partnering with Dulux Decorator Centre, for example, will ensure a dedicated team is assigned to provide expert advice from the specification stage. They are also able to look at the carbon footprint of a painting project or programme over its lifecycle and provide insight on alternative options to support more sustainable decisions. In addition, the Dulux Decorator Centre team will work closely with the Dulux Trade Colour Consultants who can provide bespoke palettes that meet the needs of building occupants.
To help with the sustainable disposal of empty paint cans at the end of a project, Dulux Decorator Centre offers a can recycling scheme. It can also help to facilitate the donation of leftover paint to good causes like Community RePaint, so nothing goes to waste.
To find out more about how Dulux Decorator Centre can support on your next project, click here.
About Dulux Trade
Dulux is the UK’s leading paint brand, with a wealth of products and services designed to help you find the colours that will suit your project, and give you the expert knowledge you’ll need to achieve great results.
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Dulux has announced its Colour of the Year for 2024, Sweet Embrace. In this article, Dawn Scott, Senior Colour Designer at Dulux explains more about the research behind the colour, introduces its complementary colour palettes and explains how to use the shades across different sectors.
For the last 21 years, Dulux has been using trend forecasting to identify a Colour of the Year that reflects the current state of the world and needs of building occupants. Every year, Dulux colour experts and international design professionals come together for a Trend Forecast brainstorm and share insights about where the world is heading.
This year’s discussions found that although we’re better informed than ever before, we’re still searching for peace of mind, clarity and moments of joy. In a world that feels fragile and complicated, people are seeking a space where they belong.
The Colour of the Year 2024, Sweet Embrace, is a reflection of this insight. Named by Dulux for its ‘arm around the shoulder’ quality, it can be used for projects across all sectors to create a sense of belonging for building occupants.
In addition to Sweet Embrace, interior designers can also draw inspiration from the three complementary colour palettes: Warm, Calm and Uplifting. Each palette can be used alongside Sweet Embrace to support the end use of a space and evoke emotion in building occupants.
Sweet Embrace and its complementary colour palettes are incredibly versatile and can be used across any sector:
The key to designing education settings is making students, staff and visitors feel welcomed and motivated. Whilst Sweet Embrace provides a neutral backdrop that is perfect for the main walls of a classroom, the more saturated tones in the Uplifting palette like High Summer can be used to draw pupils’ attention to the teaching wall.
These bolder tones and the soft pastels such as Fragrant Peony can also be used to bring joy to education spaces, without being too overstimulating. This is key for supporting neurodiversity and making the environment comfortable for everyone.
For areas such as libraries or time-out spaces, the Calm palette is recommended. The sage greens and sea blues, which provide that subtle link to nature, will help students to unwind and feel at ease.
Across the healthcare sector, designs are moving away from industrial, sterile aesthetics. To support the softer and more comforting designs that are now becoming the norm in hospital settings, the Calm palette is recommended. Its links to nature make the colours feel restorative and soothing, which is ideal for creating positive environments for staff, patients and visitors.
For care homes, one of the top priorities is ensuring designs aid wayfinding and help residents maintain their independence. To do this, it is recommended to use softer hues like Sweet Embrace on the main walls and more saturated tones from the Warm palette, like Peanut Butter or Winter Pumpkin, for doorways and feature walls to make these elements stand out.
To create spaces that improve focus and boost productivity – whilst also offsetting high-intensity and stress - use the Calm palette. These colours bring the outdoors in and help people to relax, improving wellbeing in the work area.
However, to boost people’s mood and provide an upbeat welcome to those entering the building we suggest the Uplifting palette’s brighter yellows like High Summer and Ochre Sands for lobbies and entrance ways.
Hotels and restaurants can really benefit from the tones in the Warm palette, as they can be used to create a home-from-home feeling and make people comfortable. On the contrary, to encourage playfulness in leisure spaces, use the Uplifting palette.
For social housing, it is important to make residents feel at home as soon as they enter the building. The Warm palette is ideal for this, as the tones can create a sense of belonging and connectedness. The colours chosen for communal spaces are also incredibly important and should bring joy and imply friendliness - which can be achieved with the Uplifting palette.
Sweet Embrace and the Colour Futures palettes can be selected across a wide range of Dulux Trade products. For education environments, we recommend highly durably paints like Dulux Trade Scuffshield Matt. This tough, water-based emulsion contains ultimate scuff resistant technology that is designed to protect walls against scuff marks being left behind from items such as shoes and bags, to help keep walls looking good for longer.
To further support hospital specifications, a tough, scrubbable anti-bacterial paint like Dulux Trade Sterishield is an ideal hygeine solution as it inhibits bacterial growth, preventing the spread of germs.
Finally, for busy hospitality, commercial and housing projects we suggest using durable paints that can be easily cleaned. For example, Dulux Trade Diamond Matt can withstand 10,000 scrubs (which is the equivalent of five hours non-stop scrubbing) so it can be repeatedly cleaned, ensuring that unwanted stains are easily removed without damaging the paint film on the wall – making the professional finish last even longer. This product also supports sustainability goals as it is 99.9% VOC free.
Dulux Trade Colour of the Year 2024, Sweet Embrace, and the palettes are available to specify from 12 September 2023. For additional guidance on the use of these colours refer to the Dulux Trade Colour of the Year 2024 Specifier Brochure here.
The annual unveiling of the Dulux Colour of the Year is a culmination of months of trend analysis from visiting exhibitions and design fairs, as well as keeping an eye on the social, cultural and economic trends to decipher the tones that capture the moment. We caught up with Heleen Van Gent, Creative Director Global of AkzoNobel’s Aesthetic Centre that is responsible for coming up with the Colour of the Year, to find out more about her role and the process behind choosing the famous Dulux Colour of the Year.
Based in the Netherlands, the AkzoNobel Global Aesthetic Centre is our hub for colour trend analysis, colour research and design and art direction. For the past 30 years, the team has worked year-round, translating social trends into colour trends for the 150 countries where AkzoNobel operates.
I have worked at AkzoNobel for just over 13 years and I am the Creative Director of the Global Aesthetic Centre.
My journey started in the magazine industry in the Netherlands. I had worked in partnership with AkzoNobel on a project and this gave me my first glimpse of the Global Aesthetic Centre. From then on, I knew that this was the job for me.
I have always had an interest in making the everyday beautiful and helping people introduce wonderful things into their living environment. I think the effect colour can have on your mood and emotions is often underestimated. A lick of paint is an excellent and relatively inexpensive way to make a tremendous impact on our lives.
Aside from our team at the Global Aesthetic Centre, we bring together a panel of design experts from across the globe. Each member brings with them insights from their culture, way of living and how they see the year ahead.
To ensure objectivity, we look to design experts who are connected to AkzoNobel in some way but are not key customers. This is important as we need to obtain their honest professional opinions and insights to ensure that the colour chosen works in all the countries we operate in.
When designing the Colour of the Year we try to capture the moment in just one colour, which, as you can imagine, isn’t a simple task. It takes almost a whole year to design the final colour, with input from all global outposts of AkzoNobel before a final decision is made. While the process is largely confined to the Global Aesthetic Centre, we do see it as a team effort for the whole company and professional panel.
The process of choosing the Colour of the Year is constant. Our in-house team and the design experts we work with are out visiting exhibitions and design fairs, as well as keeping an eye on the social, cultural, and economic trends. We then come together for a three-day session where we discuss what we’ve seen and share what we believe will be influential over the coming year.
We start the three-day process by asking the team questions like what keeps them awake at night or what makes them happy (since they are just as much consumers as anyone else).
This helps us to get to the root of the issues that the world is facing today. This year, we were inspired by Mother Nature fighting back – with floods and drought featuring heavily in current affairs and nature being used to inspire popular interior designs.
The discussions also led us to see that yellow was dominating. We therefore knew that this would be the base of our Colour of the Year 2023 – we just didn’t know the exact shade. Based on this insight, we came up with Wild WonderTM: a positive, glowing natural tone that connects us with nature. We see this colour as a soft gold with hints of green inspired by fresh seed pods and harvest grain.
Our discussions also help us create the four colour palettes that we launch alongside the Colour of the Year – identifying complementary shades that are all inspired by the same insight and behavioural trends. This year our four colour stories are:
We make sure that the Colour of the Year and its complementary palettes can be used in any setting – from the domestic home through to commercial premises across education, healthcare, hospitality, office and residential sectors. For example, this year’s Buzz palette with its rich, diverse and joyful colours is perfectly suited for the hospitality sector. We think a hotel room or lobby painted in this bright palette will be sure to bring a smile to someone’s face.
Flow on the other hand has more subtle and timeless colours that perform well in the education sector. Both early year education settings, up to teenagers and university students can benefit from this palette thanks to its roundness and friendliness.
This answer is twofold. The first moment is when we’ve settled on a story. This is no mean feat, as we have to make sure that everyone is on board and aligned with the vision.
The second moment is our "country call” where we present our new colour palette, way of thinking and messaging map to our AkzoNobel colleagues around the world. This is an opportunity for them to push back if they think the colour might not work in their region which always makes me nervous. However, when I saw everyone nodding their head and buying into the colour story, I knew we’d cracked it and found something that resonates with everyone.
For more information about Dulux’s Colour of the Year, please visit: www.duluxtrade.co.uk/COTY23
To download the ColourFutures™ 2023 Specifier Brochure, click here.
Questions answered by Heleen Van Gent, Creative Director, AkzoNobel’s Global Aesthetic Centre.
About AkzoNobel
AkzoNobel deliver the sustainable and innovative solutions that our customers, communities – and the planet – are increasingly relying on. As experts in making coatings, chances are you’re only ever a few meters from one of their products. Active in over 150 countries, they’ve set their sights on becoming the global industry leader. It’s what you’d expect from the most sustainable paints company, which has been inventing the future for more than two centuries.
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Dulux is celebrating two decades of Colour of the Year and has just launched its colour for 2023: Wild WonderTM - and four complementary, versatile colour palettes that can be used to create stunning spaces across all sectors.
Wild WonderTM - a soft gold with hints of green inspired by fresh seed pods and harvest grain – is Dulux’s Colour of the Year 2023. Its upbeat glow connects us with nature, creating a sense of energy and positivity.
As people search for support, connection, inspiration and balance in the world today, they’re diving into the wonders of the natural world to find it. Extensive research conducted by Dulux colour experts and international design professionals found that even with so many challenges ahead, there was hope at the heart of global social, design and consumer trends.
Marianne Shillingford, Creative Director of Dulux UK, says: “Our relationship with the natural world feels more precious and precarious than ever. As well as understanding the value of nature more keenly, with climate change becoming a reality for all of us, we also feel the urgency of reconnecting with nature and the necessity of working with rather than against it.
“The earth and its materials have been inspiring humanity for centuries. Now is the time to put them centre stage and bring the outside, in.
“We’re re-evaluating our relationship with nature and sensing the importance of learning from it not just about it. We’re understanding afresh that nature is the source of everything, bringing us solace, inspiration, materials and a myriad of blueprints for living. That’s why, this year, we’ve put the wonder of nature at the heart of our colour story.”
“Wild WonderTM speaks to us in a language we instinctively understand,” says Heleen van Gent, Creative Director of AkzoNobel’s Global Aesthetic Centre, which chooses the colour. “Nature is what inspires us and makes us feel better in our lives and in our homes. That’s why, for the first time in 20 years, our entire colour palette is inspired by the rhythms of nature.”
The name Wild WonderTM was created on the basis that ‘wild’ conjures up the freedom of nature and ‘wonder’ conveys the natural magic we see all around us. Wild WonderTM is a positive, natural tone that, by connecting us with the natural world, can help us feel better in our homes.
Four decorative paint colour palettes have been designed around Wild WonderTM:
Lisa Pilley, Dulux Trade Commercial Colour Consultant, adds: “Wild WonderTM and its four versatile colour palettes reflect the natural world and intuitively connect with nature’s supply of substrates and materials - whether structural or aesthetic. As the world strives to re-use, rescue and build sustainably within commercial design programmes, placing humanity and environment at the heart of design is becoming increasingly essential.
“Colour can be transformational and guide occupants’ feelings and emotions. This year’s Colour of the Year and associated palettes open opportunities to connect the natural world with our everyday lives in the built environment.”
The year 2023 brings two major milestones to the Global Aesthetic Centre. Its ColourFuturesTM trend forecast will celebrate its 20th anniversary, while the team also reaches three decades of trend analysis, colour research, colour design and art direction at AkzoNobel.
The launch of Wild WonderTM is supported by the Dulux Trade Colour of the Year 2023 Specifier brochure, designed to inspire commercial design professionals working in all sectors, from hospitality to healthcare.
This brochure is part of Dulux Trade’s ongoing dedication to supporting specifiers with their latest projects, and is part of a wider package of ColourFuturesTM content. The package includes design mood boards and advice videos that can be harnessed by professionals looking to create the perfect space – in any setting – using Wild WonderTM.
To download the Dulux Trade Colour of the Year 2023 Specifier Brochure and for more information visit www.duluxtrade.co.uk/COTY23 and follow #CF23 on social media.
We supply the sustainable and innovative paints and coatings that our customers, communities – and the environment – are increasingly relying on. That’s why everything we do starts with People. Planet. Paint. Our world class portfolio of brands – including Dulux, International, Sikkens and Interpon – is trusted by customers around the globe. We’re active in more than 150 countries and have set our sights on becoming the global industry leader. It’s what you’d expect from a pioneering paints company that’s committed to science-based targets and is taking genuine action to address globally relevant challenges and protect future generations.
AkzoNobel is one of the biggest Decorative Coating companies in the world, with a rich history. Our brand, Dulux, began its origins way back in 1919. At the end of the First World War a long-established firm of varnish makers called Naylor Brothers extended its activities into paint production and moved out of central London to set up a factory in Slough on a 30 acre site.
Jumping forward to 1931 the first ‘Dulux’ alkyd-based synthetic finish was produced, based on a new formulation and the brand name ‘Dulux’ was established (a combination of ‘Durable’ and ‘Luxury’).
In 2021, we proudly celebrated our 90th birthday!
Drawing on 90yrs of experience, we help provide the tools Interior Designers require to support them in completing their projects. Distilling how colours and other materials work together, we understand that colour, in isolation, is only one part of the story. We work with the Interior Designer to carefully curate a palette of colours which tells a story, creates a desired outcome, and unlocks the potential of their project.
Our Commercial Colour Consultants are experienced in working with Contractors, Specifiers and end users. Using insights gained from these relationships, and a wealth or colour experience, our Commercial Colour Consultants can support Interior designers with their projects, across a range of sectors and working environments.
Paint has the power to pull the final design together, marrying up all elements of a space or aid as a backdrop for other elements to take centre stage. We can help you to win client confidence and underline your professionalism with brave design transformations and achieve comfortable yet functional spaces that surpass expectations.
Working with our Commercial Colour Services team ensures that your final design serves not only to provide a beautiful place to live or work but can promote better outcomes for the people using the space, as well as helping you to deliver on the organisation’s wellbeing and sustainability goals too.
There is a vast array of building specification requirements to also be aware of and each space presents its own challenges and requirements in terms of design. Our team of expert colour consultants are on hand to support Interior Designers to meet those challenges. We support Interior Designers to deliver colour designs that optimise commercial spaces efficiently and support the occupants’ needs. We guide you through our colours & colour coding system to ensure best choice of paint colour to work with your design.
Clients are looking for more and more ways to improve people’s lives. Delivering better living and working outcomes is now an everyday expectation for building owners. The effective use of colour in a building can markedly improve how occupants feel in that building. Whether the goal is to improve wayfinding in hospitals, support the visually impaired in a care home, or create a calming space conductive to learning in schools, great colour schemes can help enhance building design.
Questions answered by Martha Dunican, Commercial Colour Services Operations Manager, Dulux.
About Dulux Trade, AkzoNobel
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