Sarah Templin
Sustainability Materials Specialist and Manager of Gensler Product Sustainability Standards
Gensler

As the Sustainable Materials Specialist for Gensler’s Washington DC office and Manager of the firm-wide Gensler Product Sustainability Standards, Sarah supports initiatives that bolster the firm’s commitment to reducing environmental impact. Born from Gensler’s responsibility as one of the largest materials specifiers in the world, GPS has become an opportunity to align our carbon goals with those of the design industry to collectively achieve ambitious targets.

Sarah has expertise as an industrial designer, specializing in reimagining material applications for housewares, soft goods and furniture to improve the sustainability of product designs and position clients for the circular economy. She has worked with clients to implement measurable, cost-effective sustainability and material research, design for circularity, material innovations, prototyping, product development, design strategy, surface design, and manufacturing. Clients and collaborators include architecture firms, global technology businesses, textile and e-textile innovators, and product-focused companies across the home goods and furniture sectors. She is the founder and principal of Radica Textiles, a line of hand screen printed textiles and housewares that catered to architecture and interiors firms during its years of operation, from 2008 to 2016.

An educator by nature, Sarah has taught product design at Parsons School of Design in NYC and the Maryland Institute College of Art, where her research centered on an examination of sustainable solutions in traditional craft techniques and scaling them for the constraints of contemporary manufacturing.