By Will Novosedlik

One of the most effective ways to achieve differentiation – and get attention – is to show up in places where people least expect to find you.

That’s exactly what Volvo Canada did at this year’s Interior Design Show in Toronto. The Volvo Recharge Lounge exhibit space was partly a nod to the brand’s goal of completely transitioning to electric vehicles by 2030; partly a medium for the brand’s sustainability message; and partly an appeal to the design community as a demographic target.

The brand’s sustainability goals are ambitious. It aims to reduce CO2 emissions per car by 75% and energy usage in its operations by 40% (compared to 2018 levels); reduce water usage in its operations by 50% per car; reach 30% recycled content across its fleet, with new models having at least 35% recycled content; and to ensure at least 99% of all waste from operations be either reused or recycled.

In 2024 this commitment advances its sustainability cause with the introduction of two new fully electric models: the Volvo EX90 seven-seat flagship SUV and the Volvo EX30, the company’s smallest ever SUV. Both vehicles offer Nordico upholstery, with textiles made from recycled products such as PET bottles, as well as bio-attributed polymer from forests in Sweden and Finland.

The exhibit space, which was created in collaboration with Canadian furniture designers Gus Design Group and Stylegarage, is also a nod to the clean lines, organic materials and Zen-like simplicity of Scandinavian modern design. As such, it’s the perfect bit of calm in which to relax and “recharge” after spending hours on your feet exploring the rest of the show.

“We wanted to ensure that within our booth we were using local furniture designers who share the same values as Volvo. So Gus and Stylegarage graciously loaned us furniture that was completely on brand with our sustainability message,” explains Aleiza Alerta, director of marketing communications at Volvo Car Canada.

But are sustainability and style the values that we naturally associate with the Volvo brand? Historically Volvo has always been connected to safety. According to the brand, the Recharge Lounge was “designed with its core ethos and commitments in mind.” So is safety still the core value, or is there more?

“We see a natural overlap between sustainability and safety, and ultimately we want to provide [consumers] with the freedom to move in a personal, sustainable and safe way,” says Alerta. “You’ll probably see that across everything that we do and everything that we release going forward. We are committed to developing the safest, most intelligent technology in all of our mobility solutions.”

Alerta points out that sustainability has been a core attribute since long before it became an important word in the language of business. As an example, she cites Volvo’s early use of catalytic converters back in the ’70s to cut down on the air pollution caused by exhaust fumes.

Volvo is attempting to explore what safety means in the era of sustainability. And what knits those two attributes together is design. It’s the kind of layered, sophisticated positioning that suits a luxury brand and appeals to the design community. “For us it’s really just about having more of a human-centric approach at the center of everything we do,” she explains. “So whether it’s to help make life less complicated through understated functional design, or the design of the customer experience itself, we want be more human-centric, not product-centric.”

Being Scandinavian in origin, the brand can legitimately lay claim to an important thread in the fabric of contemporary design history. Alerta says, “We do like to take a lot of inspiration not only from Scandinavian design, but also our Swedish heritage. Scandinavian design is part of who we are, and it is something that you will continue to see in our messaging, advertising and marketing.”

Given the ingenuity of featuring an automotive brand at an interior design show, we asked Volvo if this was an indication of the kind of tactical innovation we can expect to see from the brand in the future: “I can’t reveal too much in terms of what we have for the year ahead,” Alerta shares. “I will say that with the launch of our EX30, we are expanding our demographic focus to appeal to a more youthful market segment. So I think you might see us show up in a few more unexpected spaces in the year ahead.”