significant benefit of sustainability. Reducing the household's carbon footprint (17%) and reducing waste (11%) are also cited as important benefits. While homeowners are increasingly curious about sustainable design practices, many still remain skeptical. As a result, securing consumer buy-in continues to be a challenge for kitchen and bath design professionals. Survey respondents cited five significant barriers to further integrating sustainability into their designs. Homeowner buy-in (64%) was most frequently cited, followed by expense - the need for more affordable sustainable solutions (54%). Many also pointed to a lack of attractive sustainable solutions (44%) and the long payback period for sustainable practices (27%) as sources of lingering skepticism about the benefits of sustainable design. THE CONVERSATION MUST START WITH DESIGNERS ... & BRANDS K&B professionals say homeowners rarely initiate conversations about sustainability. More than half of homeowners (53%) rarely or never proactively bring up sustainability when discussing their kitchen or bath project. Designers indicate they will have to lead these conversations about sustainable design practices and products moving forward. To be prepared for these conversations, DESIGN: KAREN SWANSON Photo credit: Jared Kuzia Photography educating kitchen and bath pros is essential. Only slightly more than half (51%) of surveyed industry pros said sustainability is extremely or very important to them professionally. The surveyed professionals shared that they don't consider themselves especially well-informed on the subject. Just under half (45%) consider themselves very or extremely familiar with the concept of sustainable design, and 60% say there simply isn't enough information available about sustainable K&B design, which makes it difficult to pass the necessary knowledge along to their clients. The burden isn't all on K&B designers, 56 / MAY-JUNE 2024