Neuro & Design: The one-person company that chose to report on sustainability

Isabelle Sjövall runs the one-person company Neuro & Design and is a leading neurodesigner and the world's first researcher in the field. Even though the company consists of just one person, she has chosen to report on sustainability through Wellfish. Isabelle wants to lead by example and demonstrate transparency in her sustainability work. This is especially important given that her research aims to make life more sustainable and to improve people's wellbeing.

One foot in research and the other in business

Isabelle Sjövall is a neurodesigner and brain researcher. She runs a company called Neuro & Design. In 2022 she moved to London to become the first in the world to research the new interdisciplinary field of neurodesign at the Faculty of Brain Sciences and the Institute for Behavioural Neuroscience at UCL. The university is also one of the world's best in architecture and neuroscience, which means she has access to the best of both worlds for her particular field of research. Isabelle's research focuses on how the brain reacts to built environments and how they affect us psychologically and physiologically.

”Our brain is made for an entirely different life, a life on the savannah, while the world around us has changed at a rapid pace. We become stressed in certain types of environments and find it difficult to both feel well and perform when there is a great deal of stimulus and noise around us”

With one foot in research and the other in business, Neuro & Design works to implement research in the real world so that we can benefit from it and live more sustainable lives. The company works primarily with property companies, property developers and architects, but also offers advice on the design of hospitals, schools, offices and homes. The two largest areas are infrastructure, and health and wellbeing linked to performance and work environments.

Sustainability: one of Neuro & Design's cornerstones — with a focus on the human aspect

”I tend to talk about human, ecological and economic sustainability. They are interconnected; you cannot achieve one without the other. We often forget the human aspect, but if we don't feel well, then we can't do good things for the world around us either, neither for nature nor in fostering positive economic development. Sustainability is very much about holistic thinking. If we feel well, we can also make better choices and do more good around us, become more effective and so on, so that it becomes a positive spiral.”

Sustainability reporting for greater transparency and credibility

Even though Neuro & Design is a one-person company, Isabelle chose to produce a sustainability report this year. Partly because she was curious about the result and genuinely wanted to scrutinise her own operations, but also to have greater credibility when encouraging her partners to report on sustainability.  

”I like transparency, so it also feels like a very good way to be open and to set annual targets, making things a little more concrete.”

The choice to report on sustainability through Wellfish was rooted in the fact that the whole concept simply felt right. ”One reason was that I have been associated with PE Accounting for a very long time and I know what PE Accounting stands for, and I think the people behind it are good. Then there was also Wellfish's way of working and the fact that you seemed pleasant to deal with. I have to admit that I was quite taken with the name as well. I thought it was clever and witty.” The fact that Wellfish automates part of the data collection was another decisive factor.