In November 2024, studiospillane and Urban Core brought together a small group of property owners, operators, designers, builders, project managers, engineers and sustainability specialists to discuss a deceptively difficult question:

How can we build food and beverage fitouts better, and more responsibly?

The discussion explored the practical barriers the industry was experiencing, including cost concerns, limited knowledge, short lease cycles, unclear responsibility at defit and the difficulty of creating value that may only be realised by a future operator or landlord.

It also identified many of the ideas that would later become central to the white paper Sustainability in Airport Retail Fitouts: earlier collaboration, better material selection, design for disassembly, decommissioning planning, clearer guidance and a stronger commercial case for circularity.

At the time, the document concluded that the conversation had only just begun and proposed the development of a real-world hospitality case study. That early discussion helped establish the questions, industry relationships and practical focus that ultimately informed the later white paper.