I’m going to be honest here and say that until recently I haven’t thought about sustainability in a design setting. Don’t get me wrong, I think about sustainability a lot. I avoid single-use plastics as much as possible, recycle what I can, buy locally, and so forth. There is a lot of care in the actions I take to try to make a difference in my personal life. I thought it was interesting to not only use design to speak up about these climate issues but to bring a sustainable mindset into the work I produce. I especially liked the idea of using recycled or eco-friendly materials in our design work. It’s such a simple and easy thing to incorporate into what I do, and something that sounded even easier to sell to potential future clients.
This also answers the question, “How can businesses or design agencies implement design for good into day to day work?” Pushing eco-friendly materials and avoiding things like single-use plastics in their design planning. I think it can be hard to focus on what the design is going to be on when we spend so much time focusing on the design itself. This makes me think back to a class taken with Christine last year when we had to repurpose our assigned object and package it. Some of the designs did not mention materials and process and some put a lot of time into this idea of sustainable packaging. I believe I brought up the idea of recyclable cardboard packaging but I was blown away by the few people who designed their packaging to be used as more than packaging, such as a way to store their object or an extra tool that worked with their object. I think giving more purpose to packaging than just packaging is an amazing way to think sustainably. I found that to be a pretty inspiring process and it has made me think more deeply about packaging and its purpose. Packaging makes up a majority of the waste we produce, almost 90 million tons of it.
https://drinksfeed.com/green-packaging-with-a-purpose/
It is a lot to think about and as a creator, I do think I have a responsibility to lead by example and practice what I preach, but I don’t think I hold any responsibility in the situation on climate change itself. I have a responsibility to use my voice and platform for good, but the people ruining this place for all of humanity are the ones that need to make a change. And by this, I mean the multi-million (and in some cases billion) dollar consumer industries that are burning this place to the ground. Literally.
