Designtex

Making Healthy Product Specifications Easier

2026 marks a huge milestone for Designtex, culminating in over 60 years of sustainability leadership. In June, the company launched an easy-to-use Sustainability Specifications Document for every product in their 8,000+ SKU catalog to make specifying healthier materials a simple click. Using the Common Materials Framework as an outline, this downloadable PDF includes extensive material health information, detailed product criteria for building program applicability, and demonstrates the company’s commitments in social health and equity. Clear and concise, this specification document aims to give usable data to the designer, material librarian, or sustainability specialist working on building and interiors projects, all in one single download. The metrics included in the document are transferable to many project criteria, aiming to ease the difficulty of hunting for this information when in the midst of a design deadline.

Pioneering Safer Materials

Designtex has long had a focus on material and human health. This began in the early 1990s when they first partnered with McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry to assess the safety of over 8,000 chemicals used in the textile industry, seeking to define a set of safer chemistry for fabrics. Today, Designtex continues to apply those early lessons, enlisting suppliers and partners across industries, academia, and public health to improve the safety of surface materials for interior applications.

For example, Designtex began assessing alternatives to the problematic PFAS chemistry used in stain resistance over a decade ago: their R&D and technical teams conducted numerous studies on the viability of other resistant treatments and validated the benefits of forgoing topical finishes altogether, while seeking to maintain fabric cleanability for lasting beauty. Simultaneously, the company doubled down on testing disinfectants and cleaning agents to develop guidance documents on every product, to facilitate the transition away from a PFAS stain-resistant, easy-care mentality.

A Shared Responsibility

As a leader, Designtex felt compelled to make its PFAS findings available within industry and academic groups such as the Green Chemistry and Commerce Council (now known as Change Chemistry) and the PFAS working group of the Green Science Policy Institute, helping push the textile sector forward on this topic. Over the past decade, Designtex increased its offering of unfinished (yet highly-cleanable) upholstery, introduced vetted non-PFAS alternatives, and removed the last traces of PFAS from obsolete product inventory over 2 years ago. Today, the company will not even facilitate the post-treatment of Designtex fabrics with PFAS-based finishes.

Intentional Design for Health and Sustainability

As a company committed to the AIA Materials Pledge, Designtex continues to innovate healthier materials for the built environment. All Designtex products have verified low VOC emissions and public material transparency documents, called Health Product Declarations (HPDs). In addition, all Designtex upholstery is free of flame retardants and added antimicrobials, including coated fabrics and textiles with branded finishes traditionally containing antimicrobials. The company has published its research making the case for avoidance of antimicrobial additives in furnishings fabric in a whitepaper found on their website.