Meet the Maker: Patrick Folkes, Founder of Graphenstone Paints
Patrick Folkes is the founder and director in the UK of Graphenstone paints, an innovative range of paints made with graphene, an extremely strong and flexible material that derives from inert carbon. By combining natural minerals with carbon technology, Graphenstone offers a sustainable and non-toxic alternative to oil-based paints.
When we were introduced to Patrick at a recent networking breakfast that we hosted, we were immediately inspired by his passion for his product. Graphenstone’s sustainability credentials motivated us to include it in the ‘Sustainability’ section of a recent planning application. We are also working with interior designer and Graphenstone collaborator Rose Uniacke on a project for which we’ll be using Rose’s own colour range manufactured by Graphenstone.
As part of our ‘Meet the Maker’ series to champion those in our industry who are shaping the sustainability agenda, we spoke to Patrick to find out more about his background, what a typical day at Graphenstone looks like, and what he’s excited about in 2025.
1. Can you tell us a little about your background and how you came to establish Graphenstone in 2013?
Graphenstone paint at No.1 St James. Design by Obbard, in consultation with Kate Watson-Smyth. Image credit: Mark Fox
Twenty-five years in finance was good business, but I never really felt that I truly belonged. Making money but making nothing. During the final ten years, I started to explore other entrepreneurial ideas.
Always motivated by health-enhancing products, I co-founded the first 'ready-made' fruit smoothie brand in the UK in 1995 while running my own fund management company. We sold PJ Smoothies to PepsiCo ten years later, after an extraordinary adventure, overcoming endless challenges on route. Our short shelf-life product required chilled distribution, which added significant and expensive operational complexity. But damn, our fruit concoctions were thick, rich and incredibly delicious – and they roared off the shelves!
I came across Graphenstone in 2013 following a trip to Seville (a fabulous city and the one in which I got married), where the company was founded. I certainly wasn’t looking for a paint brand! But I strongly felt it had potential. Conceived by paint scientists, it’s a clean, green, healthy mineral-based range, immeasurably strengthened by a remarkable 21st-century Nobel prize-winning discovery called graphene.
2. What makes Graphenstone different from standard paint brands?
Historically, paints have tended to be polluting products, both in manufacture – high carbon and pollution output – and also at point of use, leaching VOCs [volatile organic compounds] into the air, in homes and offices. Graphenstone combines graphene with lime and other clean, abundant minerals, to create a sustainable, purifying paint that’s healthy but also lasts longer, so you paint less often. It also allows walls to breathe, which has such a positive impact on health, especially in older buildings. And the luxurious colour intensity from our rich pigments, alongside natural minerals, is a real game-changer.
Our most iconic product is called Ambient Pro+, a photo-catalytic paint made with natural lime. The anatase titanium dioxide content reacts with natural or ambient light to create a chemical reaction on the surface of the paints. This helps convert toxic gases like sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides into harmless nitrates, which just fall away from the surface without dirtying the paint. This can be helpful in areas where car fumes and pollution are real challenges.
Ambient Pro+ also absorbs CO2 after application, as it cures and dries in the first month and returns to lovely natural limestone on your walls. The rich minerality, high solid content and superior pigments used in production offer an incredibly reflective, warm colour glow from the painted surface – something you won’t achieve with modern acrylics.
Meta’s King’s Cross (Building T) featuring artwork by Kyung Hwa Shon commissioned by Meta Open Arts, painted by the London Mural Company in collaboration with Accent London Ltd. Paints by Graphenstone.
3. How important is sustainability for the brand?
Our certifications show how seriously we take sustainability. We are arguably the most ecologically certified paints brand in the world, with many certifications from leading global product evaluators, including the coveted Cradle to Cradle (C2C) Gold certification.
Our packaging is 100% recycled and 100% recyclable, right down to the little strips of tape that ensure the lids stay on during transit! The C2C evaluation takes a holistic approach, looking in forensic detail around all areas of your business and production processes, including energy and water use. In Spain, we use 100% renewable energy, with a ‘closed-loop’ water system to ensure maximum purity and minimum consumption.
Since we use a range of long-trusted mineral ingredients in the production process, it’s considerably less challenging for us to obtain a very low carbon footprint in the manufacturing process, than is the case for oil-based paint brands.
4. What does a typical working day look like for you?
I’m an avid reader of the news! So the day starts with a cuppa and a speedy review of trusted news sources before I get stuck into my day. Sales income is always the focus – it drives everything. I stay closely involved with all aspects of sales and marketing. I’m also fortunate to have talented colleagues who deliver the first-rate production quality of our paints, as well as tip-top friendly and efficient customer service. We all need to obsess over our customers these days.
Typically I’m working from home in Hampshire, although I get up to London most weeks for a day or two, to keep in touch with key customers and counterparties. I’m a believer in gastro-diplomacy – a good lunch or dinner, where you get to really know someone and build relationships, or just regular face-to-face coffees. Tech-talk to my mind comes a distant second to face-to-face meetings, and I’ve always loved spending time with people. However, we will still hold weekly Teams calls with all the various departments of our business, plus a once-a-month call for the whole company. This involves every single person, so they are kept up-to-date and on track with our plans and targets. With a team working from different locations, it’s an efficient way to help create that energy and belief that sustains and encourages all of us, to put in the extra effort needed, to achieve our business goals. After all, it’s people that build businesses!
5. What is your proudest professional achievement?
As a serial entrepreneur, I’m most proud of those new businesses I have thrown myself into, in sectors where I’ve had no prior experience, or knowledge at all. We built PJs from scratch to a team of 100 people, selling well over a million bottles a month at the point of sale, in 2005. So, with enormous dedication, it can be achieved! And it’s one of those moments, as a risk-taking entrepreneur, that allows you a moment of pride, for a job well done. I have a similar goal for Graphenstone in the years to come. In the meantime, I will stay nervous, paranoid, dissatisfied and hungry!
In terms of more recent achievements, securing a licence for Graphenstone from English Heritage is a huge step forward for our relatively new brand. I’m really proud of this new association – it fits so well with other collaborations of ours, such as being paint of choice for the Eden Project (surely there are few greater brands in terms of sustainability) and the Ashmolean Oxford – a beautiful range of paint shades called ‘The Treasured Collection’ linked to famous artefacts held by the world’s oldest public museum.
I’m also proud of our work with world-renowned interior designer, Rose Uniacke, for whom we make a range of over 60 stunning shades. Her colour ‘Thyme’ was recently used by Victoria Beckham in her London showroom. All these are wonderful milestones that make us proud to be part of Graphenstone, an ever noisier and more disruptive clean-tech paint brand!
6. What advice would you give to entrepreneurs who are looking to launch a new product range?
Graphenstone’s ‘Venezia’ used in a bedroom.
Dream big, but be realistic – expect years of hard work, pain and suffering! Every market is super-competitive and will typically have large, established brands ready to deploy their infinitely more powerful financial and marketing capabilities, to attempt to crush you.
To succeed, you need a range of characteristics: resilience, a great team alongside you, a differentiated product that you can protect against all others while you build market share, quick decision-making, courage, a relentless nature, and an unshakeable vision. And that’s just for starters, for you will be constantly challenged. The original idea behind a new business, or product range, is the relatively easy part. Executing the strategy and getting market share, over multiple years, is where you need to plan and focus prior to investing your own, or other people’s money.
7. What advice would you give to clients looking to incorporate colour into their homes?
Colour is extremely important, in so many ways. However, in this era of extreme climate challenge, it’s time to think ‘Beyond Colour’, a term now trademarked by Graphenstone. We believe this is incredibly important. Choosing colour alone, with no thought to the environmental impact of the paints brand selected to deliver that colour, is ideally a habit that needs to change.
Graphenstone’s Bengal paint shown on internal double doors.
The industry uses tens of millions of tonnes of plastic every year, with too much ending up as microplastics in rivers and oceans. When you’re choosing a paint brand, ask to see independent certifications to validate the ‘harm-free’ nature of the paints – C2C, Ecolabel, Global Green Tag, Eurofins, etc. – all these add validity to your decision.
Remember that paints can be toxic at the point of use too – in your home or office. So choose colours from a brand where your indoor air quality will not be adversely affected, potentially for many months after application, to ensure the best of health for all the occupants in your space.
8. What projects are you most excited about right now?
We love to collaborate. For example, we launched a range of colours with designer Tim Gosling [a good friend of LA London’s], called ‘Restoration Chateau’, a fabulously extravagant foray into rich tones that Tim has always loved (inspired by Aubusson rugs, for example) for the French chateau he acquired with his partner.
As mentioned, our collection with Rose Uniacke is proving extremely popular, and we’re also collaborating with Howes & Landino on a range of 30 paints to commemorate their 30 years in business.
We’ve also launched a hugely inspiring collection, matching paint colours to famous treasures from the Ashmolean collection, which we're very proud of, after working intensively with the curators.
In 2025, we’re continuing our roll-out with the world-famous Royal Ballet & Opera, of a collection of 16 wonderful colours linked to famous productions, such as Cinderella and Alice in Wonderland. Finally, this spring, we’re launching a brand new range, in collaboration with English Heritage, with 120 authentic and unique colours.
LA London’s ‘Meet the Maker’ series features our contemporaries and collaborators who share our passion for sustainability, from the materials we use through to new practices and technology. Look out for more in the series on our website and social media platforms.