Leading interiors magazine Homes & Gardens has named Herefordshire interior designer and paint maker Edward Bulmer its Eco Expert 2020.

"I am humbled by your awarding me this honour, aided as you were by such able and distinguished judges," said Mr Bulmer on accepting the award.

If I’m honest, sustainability in interior design has been quite a lonely place and it is only really because kindness to people and planet has been synonymous with the work of a handful of great designers, like your judges, that it has been endurable.

"It is the actions of independent minded people and organisations that give companies like ours a chance of becoming the ‘new normal’. So thank you again for this unexpected, but really gratefully received, honour."

Edward Bulmer Natural Paint is one of the very few paint ranges which takes ‘eco-­friendly’ to mean more than just being water-based. "Our eco friendly paints (natural and plastic free) are born out of our commitment to the environment."

It was a commission in the early 2000s that provided the catalyst for Edward Bulmer Natural Paints.

“I had a project at Goodwood where the emphasis was on being environmentally friendly and non-allergenic because one of the children was badly affected by eczema and his mother watched everything that came into the house very carefully.

“As an interior designer I did not want to feel that my choices could lead to long term health implications for my painters or give rise to asthma or other health problems for my clients.”

And so he committed to creating a paint company that focused on eliminating those chemical impacts. Edward Bulmer Natural Paint uses an entirely natural base and 12 natural pigments to create the range of 90+ shades.