Eco-Chick · The modern girl's guide to living green & fabulous.

The Designer's Accord

At this year’s AIGA’s Compost Modern event I was really excited to be introduced to The Designer’s Accord, “a coalition of designers, educators, researchers, engineers, business consultants, and corporations, who are working together to create positive environmental and social impact.” Originally referred to as the “Kyoto Treaty of Design,” the coalition was formed by designer, Valerie Casey of IDEO as a collective way to increase intelligence about sustainability within the business community.

To join the Accord, you must follow the coalition’s guidelines of:
1. Do no harm;
2. Communicate and collaborate;
3. Keep learning, keep teaching;
4. Instigate meaningful change;
5. Make theory action

Depending on your level of involvement in the coalition, your specific guidelines for upholding these 5 main guidelines are different. Members are divided into 3 categories: Adopters (design firms, corporations, educational institutions), Supporters (artists, freelance designers, students) or Endorsers (organizations).

For example, the guidelines for “Design Firm Adopters” are:
1. Publicly declare participation in the Designers Accord.
2. Initiate a dialogue about environmental impact and sustainable alternatives with each and every client. Rework client contracts to favor environmentally responsible design and work processes. Provide strategic and material alternatives for sustainable design.
3. Undertake a program to educate your teams about sustainability and sustainable design.
4. Measure the carbon/greenhouse gas footprint of your firm (includes operations and client engagements), and pledge to reduce your footprint annually.
5. Advance the understanding of environmental issues from a design perspective by contributing actively to the communal knowledge base for sustainable design.

It’s great to see that as more people take an interest and are more informed about the environment and the impact we have upon it, that green practices within the design field are finally being seen as mandatory vs. being optional. The Designer’s Accord is a great place where designers can educate themselves and find tools to educate their clients about what “being green” in our field really means.

There’s a great article in Business Week about Casey and the Accord here. An interview with founder, Valerie Casey about how the Accord came to be created can also be found here.

Global War by Dawn Maxey

I was introduced to Dawn Maxey’s spoken word poetry at the recent AIGA Compost Modern event.

Here’s some excerpts from her very spirited poem, “Global War” about eco-hype:

But then/ just the other day,
I began to notice people at Whole Foods with entire shopping carts full of ‘organic’ and ‘go green’ items. These people are the same ones that say things like “did I bump into you? I’m sorry. I just didn’t expect this ENVIRONMENTALLY SAFE dishwashing soap to be so heavy.”
I want to pour environmentally safe salt in their eyes.

In fact, I imagine a day when things get so bad you’ll live in a glass house so that everyone can see you wake up in the morning, get out of your organic soy bean bed and pack your “this is not a plastic bag”, bag. You’ll open a box of Tony the tiger’s non hydrogenated hypoallergenic free trade grain flakes, and drive your not-tested-on-animals bicycle to work. Then you’ll help Nike ‘save’ the rainforest by branding large red swooshes on all the lemurs or maybe organize a photo shoot for Abercrombie’s new cotton free cotton underwear.

Green is chic now, but when the stock market of trends crashes
no one will want to be caught dead with biodegradable polos, environmentally safe dirt, or toilet paper made from corn husks.
the earth will be just as trashed as Lindsay Lohan in a Bacardi factory
and people will care
even less

So how do you fix the problem?
Make being green
sustainable
show people that it’s not hip or trendy or fun to be green
it’s an obligation

Compost Modern 08 Wrap-up

Sustainability promises to be one of the defining issues of our time, one with profound affects on our personal and professional lives.

For designers, it represents unique challenges as well as tremendous potential — nothing less than an opportunity to redesign how the world works.

Compost Modern 2008, a joint production of the AIGA San Francisco chapter and the AIGA Center for Sustainable Design was once again a huge success this year. Geared towards a wide variety of designers, Compost Modern was

“a day of brilliant ideas, practical solutions, drama, inspiration, eye candy and some tough questions as we explore design’s role in transitioning to a sustainable society.”

Held at the Academy of Art University Morgan Auditorium in San Francisco, the conference featured an impressive variety of speakers.

Although I was volunteering for most of the event and could only catch a few of the lectures, a great round up of the event can be found here.

The Afterlife: Call for Entries

If you’re an eco-minded fashion designer, The Afterlife is the event of the year to participate in! AIGA San Francisco is currently rounding up green artists/fashion designers/graphic designers to participate in its 2007 Gala event with the main focus being a recycled paper fashion show/auction.

Help rescue paper from recycling limbo with a benefit auction of post-consumer paper apparel and objects d’art by some of the Bay Area’s great designers. We’ll also have a runway show, a DJ and lots of giveaways from our industry sponsors. Don’t miss it. And remember, the road to hell is paved with wasted paper.

All submissions must be made from a recycled paper product (paper that’s used before). The deadline for submission (preliminary sketches) is September 29th, 2007, so sign up or pass this on to anyone who might like to participate. Proceeds go to AIGA San Francisco.

renourish!

Finally! A comprehensive green resource for graphic designers! I was delighted to be forwarded a link to renourish.

renourish is a resource for the graphic design industry. When green design is usually discussed, most people think of buildings, products or even cars, but what about packaging? Shouldn’t magazines, business cards, brochures and websites be green? At renourish, we’re helping to start the conversation on green graphic design by providing defintions, tips, and links to sustainable resources designers can use to make their work a little greener.

Brilliant! Renourish has great topics that run the gamut of paper, ink, printers, packaging, green design firms, sustainable living, etc. Having all of this info in one place is genius. Although green design is something that most designers are concerned about and interested in, I haven’t come across a comprehensive site like this before. I would like to see the site eventually include green vendors (other than paper & printing). I’ve been compiling my own list lately and I think that would be a great resource to have accessible to more designers.

Another green design link to check out run by AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Designers) here.