By The GFDA Community
2025 felt like a cosmic shift. We’ve witnessed rollbacks of pollution regulations, stripped renewable energy incentives, and drastic cuts to research funding—jarring changes that left many of us unsettled. In this post, we turned to our community to reflect on the past year and the one ahead. Your responses—from circularity wins to personal struggles—humbled and inspired us, reminding us we’re all humans on our own journeys. Thank you for indulging this whimsical blog idea, to turn to our greater planetary forces for inspiration and guidance, and for receiving it so warmly. At the end of a tough year, you’ve reminded us of the importance of community and the quiet courage it takes to keep going when everything feels like it’s pulling the other way.
Where did you see genuine progress or creativity this year that reminded you why this work matters?
David Edwards, PhD—Earth Bound Homes Inc.
My business is prospering when the economy looks so horrible, other builders are suffering and we are hiring people as fast as possible. We also have people wanting to work for us, because of what we do, instead of “even though we do what we do”, which is the way it used to be.
Doug Weinstein— Technology Insider Group/Technology Designer Magazine
In my world of performance homes, we measure sustainability across many platforms. One is reducing fossil fuel consumption to make our energy needs more sustainable. We saw in 2025 genuine progress with the fact that electric heat pumps outsold traditional fossil fuel furnaces by over 25%, marking another achievement in sustainable energy strategies. Heat pumps offer significant energy savings and lower bills compared to fossil fuel systems, and significantly improve indoor air quality.
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Gena Eales – Harvest EcoSalvage
Progress. Our business had its biggest year yet. As of December 9, we have kept over 200 million pounds of readily reusable and recyclable construction materials out of our landfills. We are shooting for 250 million or above next year! People are really learning and understanding how important recycling and reuse are to sustain life on Earth. It’s humbling to see, and we here at Harvest are grateful to see this amazing change. We have also expanded to seven chapters of our non-profit in nine states this year. Thank you, Universe!!!
Karen Curtiss—Red Dot Studio
Lately, I’ve begun to appreciate the immense complexity of a watershed. We are now learning that the cumulative effect of our built water systems—pulling water from one bioregion, moving it across the planet, drinking it from plastic, flushing it down toilets, letting it run off degraded agricultural soil, and channeling it through complex stormwater systems—has literally affected the Earth’s polarity. Isn’t that amazing what humans can ‘accomplish’?
Let’s set a different goal. We have been concentrating on designing better water systems in our projects, avoiding microplastic runoff, harvesting rainwater, installing gray-water systems, experimenting with new technology like atmospheric water harvesting, and letting rain be an “event” onsite with chain drains, rain gardens, and permeable surfaces. I do not believe, however, that technology alone will save us, but I do believe that when we change the way we think, we will design different systems, fostering good for people and the planet.
Erica Arnold—PG Arnold Construction
Completing the SGI-USA Denver Buddhist Center was a major milestone for our company. It showed us that sustainable design works and we plan to implement the best practices from this project where we can in future endeavors. The synergies between the owner, architect and our team were palpable and made for one of the most successful projects to date for all three entities.
Carolyn Flannery — Make it Home
This year, I saw it in every moment when discarded pieces, things headed for landfill, became the foundation for a family’s new beginning. The creativity of our team, volunteers, designers, and Re*New trainees transformed waste into beauty, comfort, and dignity. Watching young people learn a craft, watching families walk into a furnished home, and watching our new space come alive with purpose all reminded me that this work is deeply creative at its core: we are designing futures, not just rooms.
Eric Edelson — Fireclay Tile
For me, it was launching Fireclay Bath. After years of dreaming and prototyping, we introduced a product that not only expands our design capabilities but stays true to our values of sustainability, transparency, and domestic manufacturing. Watching our team pull this off—without cutting corners on people or planet—was a powerful reminder that doing the right thing and doing something bold can absolutely go hand-in-hand.
Lew Epstein – LOT 21: Design for Decarbonization
Ambitious projects such as the City CDR Initiative show us how this work matters across multiple disciplines.
Organizations like CRSI are developing new carbon removal standards and providing clear guidance on how to incorporate them into industry practices. This work behind the scenes matters.
Growing awareness of how Circular Design and our industry’s efforts help drive the Circular Economy forward.
Michael Hirschhorn – Mebl | Transforming Furniture
We interview ‘changemakers’ in the furniture industry throughout the year. Many of these innovators are ‘happy warriors.’ They exude quiet defiant insistence in proceeding ‘full steam ahead’ in sustainable product innovation — despite the headwinds of literal reversals in related public policy at the federal level.
Charlie Stott – AIA-SF Committee on the Environment
It is a very hopeful sign that the world does not stop turning (physically or metaphorically!) with changes in US policy. Unlike the abrupt shifts in US domestic climate investments, the world outside our borders gets it, and continues to electrify and decarbonize despite us. A key takeaway for 2025 is that renewable energy surpassed coal as the world’s main source of electricity; and that fossil-renewable gap will continue to widen, despite the drilling.
Phoebe Schenker—Reuse Alliance
I saw such an outpouring of support for reuse this year it was genuinely heartening and kept us going. I see new businesses cropping up all the time to solve for gaps and pain points in our reuse infrastructure and it’s genuinely heartening.
Nureed Saeed—Nu Interiors
This year I watched clients get excited about sustainable choices. Suddenly everyone wanted the story behind the materials, the carbon math, and the “why” behind the design. That curiosity sparked some of the most creative solutions we have done yet. It reminded me that when people care, the work gets more joyful, and a whole lot more meaningful.
Shujan Bertrand—Aplát
I saw it in our students. We piloted new life-centered, circular design studios at CCA, and I watched juniors and seniors shift from “How do I make a cool product?” to “How do I design for human and planetary health over time?”
Instilling nature as our teacher, because nature does not produce waste: studying biomimicry, mapping regenerative cycles, and asking what non-human intelligence can show us about resilience and repair. At the same time, we’re new circular businesses and services with AI and other emerging tools as a way to see systems more clearly, not to replace human intelligence but to deepen it. That mindset shift — from product to system, from object to relationship, from human alone to more-than-human — is the kind of creativity that makes me feel this work is actually moving the needle.
Jeannie Fraise—Lotus Bleu Design
I felt very inspired this year to see how Make It Home Bay Area has grown over the past few years. Celebrating their new permanent space in October was so rewarding. It’s proof that our industry can come together to solve furniture poverty and keep furnishings out of landfills. As you know, I created one of the tablescapes for their Salvage & Style event. We had to use items donated to Make It Home or other vintage ones. I loved the process of putting together our table and was so amazed by how beautiful all the tables were by over 30 designers and volunteers. It definitely proves that you don’t need new decor to make things original, gorgeous, and special.
What planetary energy (Venus’s creativity, Mars’s courage, Saturn’s discipline…) do you feel called to channel in your sustainability work next year?
Nureed Saeed—Nu Interiors
Next year I’m channeling Venus in work boots; so creativity with a little grit. I want sustainability to feel beautiful, inviting, and totally irresistible, but also grounded enough to actually get things done. Venus brings the charm, and I’ll supply the spreadsheets.
Erica Arnold—PG Arnold Construction
I would say all three will be channeled. It will take courage to navigate the frothy waters of the current economy and to push for sustainable design when budgets are tight. Discipline to keep on task and creativity to value engineer sustainable options when the client is resistant or does not have the budget.
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Eric Edelson — Fireclay Tile
There’s a lot of noise right now in the world of ESG and sustainability—some good, some greenwashed. Next year, I want to focus on clarity, consistency, and long-term commitment. We’re doubling down on data, on honest impact reporting, and on projects that move the needle, even if they don’t always make headlines.
Charlie Stott – AIA-SF Committee on the Environment
Definitely discipline! I’m an Aries, not a Capricorn, so God help us! But I know that focus, in the face of constant noise and disinformation, is going to be key to positive change in the short and long term.
Lauren Winters West—Next Highest Good
Next year I’m calling in Saturn’s discipline. I’m at a point where the most meaningful sustainability work I can do is to strengthen the business itself—creating real infrastructure, clear roles, documented systems, and a rhythm that supports both growth and sanity. The creative part comes naturally; the challenge is building the container that can hold it. I’m ready to step into a more structured, deliberate season where the business has the foundation it needs to grow in a healthy, sustainable way. Saturn feels like the energy for that: steady, grounded, and focused on lasting impact.
Doug Weinstein— Technology Insider Group/Technology Designer Magazine
Neptune’s imagination. Finding new ways, better ways to tell our stories about why sustainability matters across every facet of modern performance homes. From design to build, we need to continue to reduce waste, decarbonize, and detoxify our living environments.
Carolyn Flannery — Make it Home
Saturn for building long-term structure, stewardship systems, circular economy partnerships, and scalable training programs that last. Venus for keeping beauty, harmony, and creativity at the heart of everything we salvage, restore, and place into homes. Together they call for disciplined innovation that feels both sustainable and soulful.
Michael Hirschhorn – Mebl | Transforming Furniture
I don’t know from planetary energy but … I love the urban full moon. I’ve channeled industrial-scale hopefulness from full-moon Brooklyn nighttime sky as reflected on the sides of neighboring scarred buildings.
Shujan Bertrand—Aplát
Next year, I’m calling in a blend of Saturn and Venus. Saturn for discipline and structure — to keep building clear frameworks for circular curriculum, assessment, and industry partnerships so this isn’t just “inspiration,” it’s infrastructure. And Venus for creativity and care — to keep reminding everyone that circularity is not only about efficiency, it’s about beauty, joy, and the emotional connection we have with the things we make, use, and pass on.
I’m also inviting in a kind of “Earth energy” — a reminder to keep learning from natural systems, biomimicry, and the more-than-human world, and to use both human and alternative intelligences (like AI) as tools to become better stewards of the planet. That’s something I want my students to feel in their work: that these tools are here to help them understand, not just optimize.
Jeannie Fraise—Lotus Bleu Design
I think Mars courage to keep pushing our clients to make the most sustainable choices. It’s hard when so many furnishings have gone up in price due to tariffs or inflation to convince people to buy the often more expensive, better-made, and longer-lasting pieces. We’ve grown accustomed to such instant satisfaction, and the sustainable choice sometimes means that you can’t do everything at once or have to do less than you may have wanted to start. It also takes courage to convince clients to take the time to look at vintage pieces. This sometimes means paying more of our hourly fees to source them and having to make quicker decisions before things are sold, but once they have the vintage furnishings, they always see the value. Their homes feel more original and personalized to them. They also see how they got something better-made that will last longer.
What is one thing you let go of this year—and one thing you hope to grow in 2026—as part of your own cosmic “Great Reset”?
Lew Epstein – LOT 21: Design for Decarbonization
To Let go: Given the steady flow of climate and sustainability information across the media, I’m letting go of peripheral topics, however interesting, to concentrate on those most central to our work. To Grow: Carbon Utilization plays an essential and expanding role in Circular Design. It impacts architecture, products, and packaging across consumer, commercial, and industrial sectors, and will have a measurable, highly scalable impact in the years ahead.
Phoebe Schenker—Reuse Alliance
This year I learned that relaxation and productivity are not opposites on a spectrum as I’d always thought of them, but instead it’s possible to be relaxed and productive at the same time. This is part of my own great reset – to slow down and be more present in the work I’m doing.
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Michael Hirschhorn – Mebl | Transforming Furniture
I let go of any pretense that I can completely control our family plans (in acknowledgement of what’s needed to support a child’s worsening chronic health condition). In 2026 I hope to grow in my cosmic capacity to empty 50% of the 25-years of accumulated stuff in our basement.
Carolyn Flannery — Make it Home
I let go of the idea that we have to do everything at once to make meaningful impact. Growth is powerful, but it does not have to be frantic.
In 2026, I hope to grow our capacity, our people, our systems, and our circular economy infrastructure, so our impact can deepen without burning out the team. More ease, more clarity, and more aligned expansion.
David Edwards, PhD—Earth Bound Homes Inc.
We are going to stop accepting employees who are here for the paycheck and stop thinking in the limited mindset and start thinking in the abundance mindset. Great people to work with are not IMPOSSIBLE to find, they are just harder to find.
Doug Weinstein— Technology Insider Group/Technology Designer Magazine
My great reset involved letting go and trusting others. For the first time since we started our first company in 2000, we took a vacation where we didn’t look at our phones or emails even once. Amazing! And that’s because we’ve built a strong, responsible team. We’re already planning a trip to Australia in early 2026 and won’t even be taking our laptops with us.
Erica Arnold—PG Arnold Construction
We are more judicious when selecting partners with whom we work. They must share our vision for excellence, value, hard work, sustainable practice, and transparent communication. We hope to grow our knowledge, network, and book of business in the sustainable space.
Charlie Stott – AIA-SF Committee on the Environment
Oh! If only I were so Marie Kondo!! How’s about: Less reliance on self, and more on community….
Nureed Saeed—Nu Interiors
This year I let go of the idea that I need to solve everything myself. Collaboration has been the best kind of magic.
In 2026, I want to grow more regenerative practices. Designs that don’t just reduce harm but actually give something back. A little cosmic composting if you will.
Shujan Bertrand—Aplát
I let go of the idea that I personally have to carry every part of the transition on my shoulders. This year pushed me to share the work more — with faculty, students, alumni, and partners through IDSA and beyond.
In 2026, I want to grow deeper, slower collaborations: launching at CCA this fall 2026, 4 new CoCreative Labs (CoLAB) upper level design studios with industry partners who are ready to test circular business models, human health, more shared metrics for impact, and more space for students and makers to imagine futures that are not driven by urgency and burnout, but by regeneration.
Where did you find resilience in your work or projects this year, despite the cosmic chaos?
Shujan Bertrand—Aplát
Resilience showed up for me in the in-between spaces — especially as I’ve been leading a full circular design curriculum redesign at CCA while also navigating big transitions with my long-time manufacturing partners at Aplat. Factories are closing, students are anxious about the future, and the climate headlines are heavy.
I also lost my mother this year. She was the one who taught me to live with purpose, to reuse everything, and to see “waste” as a sign that something could be designed better. In many ways, she was my first zero-waste mentor. When things felt chaotic, I came back to her example of quiet care and resourcefulness. What kept me steady was staying close to people: listening to students, coaching faculty, talking with factory workers, and working inside IDSA’s Circular Design Council. Every conversation reminded me that this work isn’t abstract — it’s about protecting real lives, real ecosystems, and real livelihoods.
Jeannie Fraise—Lotus Bleu Design
I find resilience and purpose in our wonderful client base, especially the core group of at least a dozen amazing ones who keep coming back to us. It’s so satisfying to see how the homes we have created for them have truly stood up to time and repeated use. Our clients use their homes. They aren’t just for show. But the furnishings still show up beautifully. In the past two years, we’ve helped many clients whose homes we completed 10-15 years ago do “refreshes.” For these, we reupholstered the timeless and well-made furniture we sourced for them, repaired or refinished other furniture, cleaned and repaired rugs, added unique vintage pieces or textiles, and more. We only replaced when the clients really wanted to upgrade, but made sure everything we replaced went to Make It Home. The clients were so happy to get updated looks without having to buy new pieces.
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Nureed Saeed—Nu Interiors
Resilience showed up in our project teams; everyone staying flexible, creative, and surprisingly optimistic even when the universe tossed in a plot twist or two. It turns out that when people share the same values, chaos becomes more of a group adventure than a crisis.
Charlie Stott – AIA-SF Committee on the Environment
For me, it’s important to embrace the natural world as a way to better understand it, and to better support it. Spending long stretches of time outdoors, through its varied seasons and weather, is my resilience reset—helping to focus my understanding and priorities in the face of climate panic. Time in nature helps me to understand better “what would nature do?” and then try to incorporate those bits of natural wisdom into my architectural and educational efforts.
David Edwards, PhD—Earth Bound Homes Inc.
My wife and kids. And the fact that I get to do a job I absolutely love, for wonderful people.
Erica Arnold—PG Arnold Construction
We have had a project on hold for over a year. Instead of getting frustrated we worked closely with the client to value engineer the project, shore up the contract for their lending requirements, provide a team of experts to guide them through the construction process, and made sure they were supported through the precon process to avoid costly change orders and other setbacks when we are under construction.
Carolyn Flannery — Make it Home
Resilience showed up in our community: volunteers who never hesitate to show up, trainees who keep pushing forward despite life’s challenges, donors who believe in us, and families who share their joy when they finally have a place to rest. That collective resilience became the anchor that kept Make It Home moving through a year filled with construction dust, growth pains, and a thousand moving pieces.
Michael Hirschhorn – Mebl | Transforming Furniture
I’ve developed resiliency muscles by absorbing the ‘disruptor energy’ of the furniture/circularity innovators that I get to interview throughout the year.
Phoebe Schenker—Reuse Alliance
The community resilience that is created through reuse is one of its great advantages. In times of chaos like these, it is more important than ever to look to our local communities for shared resources and skills and to create excuses and avenues to get together in person around real objects in the real world. That is part of why we opened the Reuse Hub – so people would have a place to gather.
If our industry had a “North Star” for 2026, what do you believe it should be?
Karen Curtiss—Red Dot Studio
I firmly believe that humans are nature—and that we can choose to be a beneficial part of it. We are learning to design not only for humans, but for the more-than-human world that makes our own existence possible.
Eric Edelson — Fireclay Tile
Radical accountability. It’s time for our industry to not just talk about change but to own our role in the systems we want to transform—whether that’s embodied carbon, labor practices, or circularity. We need more transparency, more partnerships, and fewer excuses.
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Lew Epstein – LOT 21: Design for Decarbonization
Circularity offers a clear direction for sustainable production and consumption behaviors moving forward. Due to overshooting our planetary boundaries and the damage & loss caused by a warming world, we need a North Star with a unifying vision and daily practices to operate and behave sustainably. Both the supply and demand sides of our industry can be instrumental in making circularity a common standard and expectation; a North Star everyone can follow.
Erica Arnold—PG Arnold Construction
A mindset of oneness instead of separation in all things. Buildings, relationships, resources. It is all connected.
Carolyn Flannery — Make it Home
Build circular systems that honor people and the planet equally.
Nothing wasted.
Nothing overlooked.
Everything given a second life, including furniture, materials, opportunities, and human potential.
Michael Hirschhorn – Mebl | Transforming Furniture
Transforming (tragically) decommissioned massive offshore wind turbine blades into … all sorts of (creative) second-life usages.
Charlie Stott – AIA-SF Committee on the Environment
Perseverance is the key to progress! (and maybe a smidge of indignation….) Now is not the time to give in or give up.
Phoebe Schenker—Reuse Alliance
I believe economic development through job training in reuse should be our north star for 2026. Leaning into this creates so many benefits and helps to empower people who are being left behind by the new economic world order. And it is a bipartisan issue that everyone should be able to get behind.
Nureed Saeed—Nu Interiors
Design that gives more than it takes.
If the planet could file a design brief, that would be the headline and it’s a pretty fantastic creative challenge to our industry. Think holistically about how the design touches everyone today and in the future.
Shujan Bertrand—Aplát
A simple one: Design for net-positive, shared well-being and open source design. Not just “doing less harm,” but designing systems where materials, designers, businesses, consumers, communities, and ecosystems are all better off because we know how to work together better. If a product, service, or curriculum can’t point clearly to that, it’s time to redesign it.
If you could assign 2025 a horoscope, what would it say about our relationship with the planet?
Carolyn Flannery — Make it Home
2025 would be the year of Reconnection and Renewal.
A planetary nudge reminding us that sustainability is not only about reducing harm, it is about rekindling our bond with the world that holds us. The year encourages collective action, creative reuse, and courageous commitments to healing our ecosystems. It is a year asking us to listen, restore, and remember that the planet is our oldest partner in this work.
Charlie Stott – AIA-SF Committee on the Environment
I’m not well versed in this mystical topic, but since you prompted me earlier, let’s throw a disciplined Capricorn at it, and call it a year of progress amid the chaos! And for 2026, if there is a “sign” for love, let’s assign it that horoscope, please….
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Erica Arnold—PG Arnold Construction
2025 was a time of cleansing and resetting. The hard times showed us what wasn’t working and now we have to make changes in all aspects of our lives. Being uncomfortable is an agent for change. Embrace it and follow your inner voice for the highest and best good of the collective.
Michael Hirschhorn – Mebl | Transforming Furniture
I don’t know from horoscopes, but — with a Feb 15 birthday — I still see ’25-into-’26 holding potential for ‘the dawning of the age of aquarius.’
Nureed Saeed—Nu Interiors
2025’s horoscope says: The Earth is sending us a “reel” that should stop and make us think every day. This is the year we finally listen, respond, and maybe even overcorrect with enthusiasm. Expect surprises, breakthroughs, and a few cosmic nudges reminding us that we’re long overdue for a healthier relationship with the planet.
