Introducing VerdEco, Agua’s New Sustainable Upholstery Fabric

Developing a suite of sustainable performance upholstery fabrics has long been on our agenda at Agua, but this is easier said than done when you’re looking to create affordable materials to suit the highly technical requirements of the contract fabrics market.

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Certainly, we’ve made strides to improve our energy consumption as a business, including installing solar panels and electric forklift trucks at our longstanding Bolton facility, but it’s taken several years to find a partner mill that’s capable of weaving sustainable fabrics to meet all our unique performance criteria – until now.

We are thrilled to introduce VerdEco, our first sustainable fabric, which is available in 35 shades with a rich mix of melange colours. Not only is VerdEco truly sustainable, it’s made from 100 per cent recycled material and uses zero water in its production.

This is an important step forward for Agua as a business, and the first of a few different sustainable fabric ranges that we plan to launch in the near future. Any colleagues and clients reading this will know that sustainability is a hot topic in the design and interiors sectors – a trend that’s only set to intensify. At Agua, we’re committed to ensuring that we take meaningful steps to offer clients fabrics that not only perform well, but meet today’s rapidly changing CSR and sustainability requirements.

The collection is produced from pre-consumer textile waste; by-product materials from fibre, yarn and woven fabric. These waste products are collected and mechanically recycled into granules, which are then re-spun into yarn, re-woven, quality checked and shipped to us in recycled packaging. Crucially, the production process uses zero water, with new yarn colours being carefully composed from recycled fibre and checked for consistency by the mill.

As a water-free fabric, VerdEco is of course chemical-free too and uses significantly less energy in its production than conventional upholstery fabric. On average, 250 litres of water is saved when upholstering a three-seat sofa in Verd Eco. This figure represents the normal average quantity of water consumed by upholstery fabric used to cover a standard three-seater. At scale, the water and energy savings available by choosing VerdEco are significant for furniture manufacturers and specifiers to say the least.

In terms of its performance features, VerdEco is crib 5 and IMO inherent, with no back-coating needed to achieve these fire retardant standards. However, in a commitment to keeping the collection truly sustainable, we’ve not treated the fabric as we do most of our other soft fabric ranges, so it’s worth keeping in mind that VerdEco isn’t waterproof, stain resistant or antimicrobial, as with the core Agua collection.

We’re thrilled with the results, so much so that we’ve even gone as far as to upholster two pieces from Morgan Furniture’s stylish Hampton collection in our Moss and Seagrass VerdEco colour ways, to give you a sense of how this unique range makes up. We hope you’ll agree that VerdEco, quite apart from its recycled and water-free credentials, is a good-looking, practical and highly durable fabric that fits neatly into our ever-growing range.

To place an order or learn more about VerdEco, contact Agua Fabrics through BCFA Product Finder.

The BCFA Product Finder is a unique search engine created especially for interior designers to source contract furnishing companies. Utilising this platform will support your findings for upcoming projects, with over 200 members profiles showcasing the latest product launches, new materials available, industry news and design trends.