What is sustainable graphic design? Current negative environmental and social issues are forcing designers to acknowledge the flaws in their creative process and consequently rethink design for planned obsolescence. As the global population is expected to grow by another 2.6 billion over the next forty to fifty years, it will certainly add to the current strain on our natural resources. As the population expands, so will the need for clean water, fresh air, safe food, jobs, housing, dependable transportation and many other daily and economic necessities. These new demands will inevitably increase the cutting of our forests and consequently add to the existing pollution of our air and water if we continue to follow our current design methodologies. By failing to recognize the environmental impacts of paper distribution and use, designers readily contribute money to the third largest polluting industry in the world: the paper mills. Such mills have contributed heavily to eliminate fifty percent of our world s forests. When faced with these environmental issues, it is important not to wait for others to act, but instead to lead the sustainable design revolution. As designers are both makers and consumers, our power to incite change is compelling, but what does it mean for graphic design to be sustainable? The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines sustainability as allowing for current economic needs to be met while preserving biodiversities and ecosystems to maintain the same quality of life for future generations. However to define sustainability in relation to the graphic designer one must examine the tools and resources we use on a daily basis. The main material we use is paper. Paper in modern times is usually made from wood pulp. The wood pulp that makes up the paper is taken from trees, which requires a great amount of energy and water to produce. After the paper is manufactured we use it for
printing, which also requires water, energy and, of course, ink (which is made from petroleum products requiring energy and water to refine and manufacture.) It is pretty clear that the act of designing an effective sales brochure has a profound impact on our planet. So, for the graphic designer to practice sustainably, all of the materials and energy utilized in every project must be renewable, recyclable and/or reusable. It will also become important to utilize a unified metrics system (similar to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design LEED - building standards) to gauge positive environmental impact successes of the switch to sustainable materials and processes. The graphic designer (as a starting point) should aim to limit his or her environmental footprint through this proposed list of metrics: gallons/liters of water conserved in production, British Thermal Units (BTUs) of energy saved, pounds/kilograms of solid waste kept from the landfills, number of trees conserved, and pounds/kilograms of carbon dioxide diverted from the atmosphere through production and shipping methods. (The technology employed to measure these successes is currently available and used by a number of paper companies). To speed up the implementation of these metrics, it is important for the graphic designer to be better educated and aware of sustainable issues, significantly reduce their tree-fiber paper use, advocate switching to substrates that follow the Cradle to Cradle model, zero their carbon emissions in their studio and by employing the use of vendors that utilize both renewable energy sources and an environmental policy, eliminate unnecessary packaging in their designs, and choose inks and finishes that are United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) organic, vegetable-based and non-toxic. Creating sustainable pieces should begin at the start of the design process. First, the designer must determine if the project deserves to exist in a tangible form, be communicated via another form of media (i.e. digital) or work as an intellectual object system. (An example of an intellectual object would be to design a
system of presentation like an in-store cooking demonstration as opposed to designing and printing thousands of recipe cards to instruct in learning how to prepare a special dish.) Many design projects are started quickly with poorly determined outcomes. It is imperative for the graphic designer to be educated about sustainability and to discuss project goals at length before embarking on any design endeavor. Educating oneself is just as important as educating one s client. As the project continues to develop, the graphic designer should work collaboratively with the client and vendors to create a solution that follows these four sustainable principles: Respect and care for the community Improve the quality of life, conserves Earth s vitality and diversity Minimize the depletion of non-renewable resources Change personal attitudes and practice to keep with the planet s carrying capacity Each of these principles, in turn, encourage the designer to engage in more specific tasks, such as to: Choose local and sustainably harvested or recycled materials Select renewable energy to complete the manufacture of the object Educate the consumer about the life cycle of the object through messaging/marketing Employ vendors that utilize socially equitable and environmentally friendly business practices. (These business practices should be similar to those listed for the designer to follow) Moreover, the graphic designer can look for a number of key labels that are defined and regulated by either a governmental agency or independent non-profit organizations in order to verify that the materials and processes utilized in the particular design project are sustainable, such as: Green-e, an independent certification program for companies that use
renewable energy; Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), an international organization whose mission is to promote stewardship of our world s forests (not all FSC papers contain recycled tree fibers. Read the paper specifications carefully when choosing an FSC paper); Processed Chlorine Free (PCF) paper, made from post-consumer waste PCW and bleached without chlorine or left unbleached. Look for the Processed Chlorine Free logo from the Chlorine Free Products Association Green Seal, a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization that has set solid environmental standards to help make responsible product purchases. Adhering to all of the principles detailed above is (to-date) the best practice to design sustainably. As the graphic design profession grows and adopts a working definition and unified criteria of metrics to define environmental successes, this list could and should change. During the transition to sustainable practices we must avoid cliché design decisions like trees, twigs and green imagery in order to integrate our objects into the mainstream public. These color and graphic choices carry a weighted political past and have been unfortunately over-used leading to empty and trite messaging. Our sustainable pieces should be as ubiquitous in function and aesthetic as their inequitable unsustainable counterparts. Most importantly, they will allow for a better quality of life and a continuing viable economic future. Eric Benson is an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at the University of Illinois, founder of www.re-nourish.com and task force member at the AIGA Center for Sustainable Design. References United Nations. 24 Feb. 2005. World Population to Increase by 2.6 Billion Over Next 45 Years, with all Growth Occurring in Less Developed Regions. http://www.un.org/news/press/docs/2005/pop918.doc.htm [31 May 2007]. Imhoff, Daniel. 2005. Paper or Plastic: Searching for Solutions to an Overpackaged World. 162. San Francisco: Sierra Club
Books. National Resource Defense Council. http://nrdc.org/land/forests/fforestf.asp [30 July 2007]. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Sustainability. http://www.epa.gov/sustainability/ [31 May 2007]. McDonough, William and Braungart, Michael. 2002. Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. New York: North Point Press. Green-e. What is Green-e? http://www.green-e.org/about_whatis.shtml [30 July 2007]. Forest Stewardship Council. About FSC. http://www.fsc.org/en/about [30 July 2007]. Chlorine Free Products Association. CFPA Goals and Purpose. http://www.chlorinefreeproducts.org/about.htm [30 July 2007]. Green Seal. About Green Seal. http://www.greenseal.org/about/index.cfm 30 July 2007].