After operating out of a co-working space for two years, the Toronto branch of EcoVadis — a global platform founded in Paris in 2007 to provide businesses with environmental, social and ethical performance ratings and help them align and improve their supply chains — was looking for a more permanent and personal location. A raw 1,486-square-metre space on the 20th level of a 23-storey tower in the downtown core fit the bill in many ways, but the company needed guidance on how to create an interior that reflected its identity and stayed true to its ethos. That is where Tatiana Soldatova and her team at Syllable Design came in.

Wanting to give employees a sense of the outdoors, Syllable Design introduced a “promenade garden” at the entrance, with living greenery by local studios The Indoor Forest and By Nature Design. A beautiful blue paint on the ceiling and built-in makes a visual allusion to the sky and water.

A champion of sustainability herself, Soldatova prioritizes buying second-hand in both her life and her work, and naturally brought this philosophy to the concept for EcoVadis’s North American
headquarters. Adamantly opposed to “fast furniture,” the interior designer developed a plan that would ultimately incorporate 95 per cent repurposed, refurbished and remanufactured furniture
while still feeling cutting-edge and modern. “It’s a different furniture-buying model since you don’t always know what’s available and the budget floats like an amoeba,” says Soldatova of the process. “But making environmental choices is not as expensive as it’s sometimes perceived to be. You just have to be nimble and willing to change direction if necessary to accommodate what is available versus what was planned for.”

A moss wall in the lobby layers in a biophilic element while staying on budget.

Once the floor plan was established and the desired furniture determined, Soldatova turned to frequent collaborator Andy Delisi of office furniture dealer, refurbisher and reseller Envirotech, who was able to source almost everything through available inventory and two recent decommissions, including Zody task chairs from Haworth that were resurrected to like-new status and pre-owned workstations from Pair. “Most projects achieve both cost savings and environmental benefits by blending refurbished with new furniture, typically around 40 per cent refurbished and 60 per cent new,” says Delisi. “The EcoVadis project stands out as a remarkable example driven by a design firm and client fully committed to challenging the ‘new furniture only’ mindset.”

Custom planters at the end of the pre-owned workstations cleverly conceal power feeds that extend down from the ceiling, negating the need to core the floor.

To fill in the pieces that could not be sourced second-hand — like the carbon-neutral flooring, energy-efficient LED systems and greenery/seating island in the canteen — Soldatova relied on her network of manufacturers in Ontario and Quebec to reduce shipping costs and the overall carbon footprint. Sky blue paint (low-VOC, of course), a lush moss wall and plantings at the end of each workstation were integrated into the design to boost employee well-being and directly nod to the company’s eco-minded principles. Essentially a case study in sustainability done right, the EcoVadis Toronto office is high design with a conscience.