Creating a healthy home: the best eco-friendly paint brands on the market.

A fresh lick of paint can give your home a whole new look, but do you really know what you’re putting on your walls? When choosing your colour, it’s a good idea to mull over not just the exact shade but also the paint’s chemical contents. Look for paints with low VOCs and those that are made from natural and organic formulas. It turns out they’re kinder not just to the planet but also to your health. Keep reading to find our picks for the best eco-friendly paint brands.

A healthy home

It’s not exactly an everyday statistic, but it turns out that the average person inhales 15,000 litres of air every day: much of it indoors. And our modern homes are increasingly full of synthetic chemicals that can end up making indoor pollution worse than outdoor pollution.

Surprisingly, one source of these chemical pollutants can be the paint on our walls. That unmistakeable fresh paint smell, it turns out, is the result of chemicals, such as solvents, emitting VOCs (volatile organic compounds) and is known, rather less prosaically, as “off-gassing”.

VOCs are not all bad. They’re the reason that flowers give off their delectable aromas. They’re in fact simply carbon-based gases releasing into the air - and while some are glorious, some are decidedly noxious. Thankfully, harmful VOCs are strictly regulated within the UK, and it’s a legal requirement for paint brands to state the VOC content of their products.

So while in this country, VOCs in paint are not a direct cause of respiratory disease, they can add to the accumulative load of pollutants in the air that in excess can stress our bodies. VOCs do dissipate overtime, after the paint dries on the wall, but this process can last for up to 6 months - so, if you’re looking to reduce indoor pollutants then low VOC paints are the best option.

What are the most eco-friendly paints on the market?

In 2018, the global carbon emissions of AkzoNobel (the owner of Dulux) was 14.3 million tonnes - this is equivalent to over 1.8 million homes’ energy use for one year. So imagine the reduction in carbon emissions if we made the simple swap to more sustainable paints.

We put 4 “eco-friendly” paint brands through the Green Salon greenwash filter to see how they scored. We looked for paints with a low-VOC content of between zero and eight that have solid plans to reduce their emissions to as close to zero as possible by 2040 at the latest, and that embed recycling and circularity into their businesses. At Green Salon, we only approve brands that score 50% or over on our 70+ sustainability criteria. Here’s how they did:

Edward Bulmer Natural Paint

Edward Bulmer Natural Paint are pioneers in developing paint for people and planet, and are one of the most well-known names in the eco-paint industry. Edward Bulmer Natural Paint declare all the ingredients that go into their paints, and focus on naturally occurring raw materials of plant origin.

They also use a ground-breaking plant-based binder, which is constructed from ingredients derived from wheat and maize straw - whereas traditional binders are fossil-fuel derived. This makes these paints one of the most ecological options, and their wall paints are plastic free. The company has recently installed a ground source heat pump, is switching over to electric vans and claims that the whole company creates the equivalent CO2 emissions as 6 UK citizens - with plans to reduce them further.

And if you’re looking for sumptuous shades, their paint is available in 102 beautiful colours in both interior wall emulsion as well as woodwork and metalwork finishes.

Graphenstone

Graphenstone doesn’t just reduce carbon emissions - its paint actually absorbs CO2 due to the organic lime in its formula. Three 15-litre tins will absorb the same amount of CO2 as a fully grown tree over a year. These are natural paints are also made with only trace VOCs (under 0.1%), and do not contain any plastics. We’re also hugely impressed with their long list of certifications across all sustainability indicators.

Their paint range includes 96 luxurious flat matt colours - with a full range of over 1000 shades.

COAT

COAT is the first UK paint brand to be B-corp certified. The carbon-positive paint company uses only sustainable raw materials to create a paint that’s free from solvents and toxins, and low in VOCs. It's also vegan, for anyone wanting to avoid using paint that contains animal byproducts. They also have a recycling returns scheme that’s available to their customers, where customers can bring back their empty tins, and COAT will reprocess and recycle 100% of the tin.

Aside from their gorgeous paint range, COAT have partnered with ECO Union to provide a range of sustainable painting supplies, using sustainably-harvested bamboo handles, recycled metal frames and sugarcane.

Lick

Lick paint is an Instagram cult-favourite, and has the eco-credentials to match. The paint is made in small, made-to-order batches to reduce unnecessary waste, and is also low in VOCs and biodegradable. They also have partnerships with One Tree Planted and 4oceans, and have helped remove the equivalent of nearly 51,000 plastic bottles from the sea.

We love their huge range of colours, and also their handy guides on what to do with leftover paint.

In order not to have to repaint our homes to do the research on paint quality for this blog, we relied on our partner brand Paint the Town Green* for their recommendations on the quality of the paints. They confirmed they would recommend any of the above brands.

And if you’re London based and looking for a decorating company to apply your planet-friendly paint, Paint the Town Green* is on a mission to make the decorating industry more sustainable. They use biodegradable plastic on their projects, wherever they can, and go the extra mile to make sure it is properly disposed of, and they’ve partnered with Trees for Cities to plant a tree for every project they undertake.

Inspired to start living a greener lifestyle? Our Directory is here to help!

We vet each brand for their commitment to sustainability but we are not a certification body, nor are we auditors, and we have taken the approach that we trust brands to tell the truth about their sustainability policies, practices and plans.

Affiliate disclaimer: ❀ indicates affiliate links with brands to help fund the Directory so that we can research further sustainable brands. This does not affect the price you pay.