Taking care of our environment is important no matter who you are – I should say duh, but the fact is, we can all improve in this department. As designers there are steps we can take toward achieving more sustainable practices that have less impact on our currently degrading ecological state.

In Essential Resources for a Changing Deisgn Industry (April 20, 2007) , Megan Prusynski writes:

“designers are in a unique position: we are communicators, capable of informing, educating, persuading, enlightening, facilitating, and of course, selling. We have the ability to incite action, change minds, and open eyes. I couldn’t think of a better group for leading the green revolution than the design community.”

I agree with Megan: we have a responsibility to not only take personal measures to preserve energy, but also we have the ability to change people’s minds. On the web, in print, and everywhere, communication design is exactly as the name suggests: design which communicates a message. We have a responsibility to the community to develop their awareness, if even subtly.

We don’t need to run around with signs and banners, just adapting our own practices and influencing others to do the same will go a long way. I’ve included a list of ways you and your design firm can make a difference both through your own practices and by influencing the practices of others.

Sustainable Practices for Designers (and Other Web Industry Folks):

1. Host Your Website with a Sustainable Green Web Hosting Company. They come in many shapes and sizes, and use any number of carbon-neutral energy sources (non-coal burning energy). One place a client recommended to us uses windmill power (no kidding!) – www.hostingdirect.net.

2. Work for Companies You Believe In – I’m not saying throw away contracts for companies that don’t focus specifically on saving the world, but find out about your potential clients. Helping companies who are doing good things for the environment helps them to succeed, while helping companies that harm the environment with your designs is harmful. Their success is our failure.

3. Print Smart – If you’re designing print collateral in tandem with the website you’re creating, encourage your client to use Environmentally-friendly printing with recycled papers and soy-based (or other vegetable based) inks.

4. Use the “Off” Switch – Turn off your electronics when you’re not using them. It’s so simple and easy – and you’re electric bill will decrease. Also, select printers, copiers, faxes, etc. with a “sleep” mode that conserves energy when not in use during the work day.

5. Use Less Artificial Lighting – Select an office space that offers natural light and where bulbs are needed, use energy efficient flourescents.

6. Use Less Bandwidth – basically file transfer uses energy, so the more you upload and download, the more energy you are using. Ways to cut down include not sending graphic heavy html emails (they usually look crappy no matter how much email client testing you do), doing all of your design and code work locally and then ftp’ing it to the server sound and looks right. Of course it might not be possible if you’re using backend databases and don’t have a local staging server, but you can code the html templates locally, then integrate remotely. Also, zip big files – compression decreased bandwidth.

7. Recycle Old Electronics – Dell, HP, and Apple all have “takeback” policies that allow you to send back your old equipment when you buy a new product. Before buying a computer, you may want to look into which companies offer takeback. Dell, for instance, will take back any computer (regardless of maker) when you buy a Dell.

8. Design Websites with Darker Backgrounds – according to the Black Back Web Theory and stats supplied by the US Dept. Of Energy, designing sites with white backgrounds can use up to 20% more energy than darker ones. If you have a white background on your site, darken the background by a few shades can make a significant difference. Or create darker blocked areas will help as well. (note to self: An Endless Array needs a makeover).

9. Use an LCD monitor – according to the US Dept of Energy, switching over to liquid crystal display (LCD) monitors saves up to 75% of total system energy supply. I assume if you’re a designer you already have one, but it’s not that uncommon to have a spare crt as a second (or third) monitor – lose this energy hogging appendage and get a second LCD. You’ll make up the cost in energy bills over time.

10. Advertise Your Green Initiative – Post on your own portfolio site or company website that you are a green design entity, and tell others about the measures you take. If you’re like me, more than 2/3 of the traffic we get at the Object Adjective site is from other designers just sniffin’ around. They can learn something, as can your client base. And hey, these days, it’s a good selling point to “be green”.

Sustainable Practices that Apply to Everyone:
-Don’t drive to work (or if you have to drive, buy a fuel efficient hybrid car and/or carpool).
-Eat locally grown organic foods (eating local cuts down on transportation fuel emissions and energy used for refrigeration during transport).
-Buy energy efficient appliances.
-Turn down the thermostat in the winter and only turn on the AC if it’s really necessary.
-Turn off your lights and use florescent bulbs.
-Bring your own canvas (or other material) bags to the store so you don’t need to take purchases home in “plastic”….

The steps you can take are endless and even a few changes to your daily routine can make a big difference.

If you want to read more about sustainable “green” living, I’ve included a few resources of varying types, but feel free to Google your own. There are so many sites dedicated to informing the public about how they can live in a sustainable manner I can’t even count them.

A Few of the MANY Resources out There:

A Little Greener – Run by friend and client Meredith Thomas, this site is an excellent resource for learning how you can live more sustainably in all aspects of your life, with concise sections like “food and drink,” “work”, “family” etc.

ReNourish – a great little site that focuses on how the design community can be a bit greener

The Green Office – online retailer of recycled, environmentally friendly, and sustainable business products, school supplies, and paper. They have a great “footprint” calculator that you can use to assess your office’s performance in environmental sustainability.

No Impact Man – His tag line just about sums it up: “A guilty liberal finally snaps, swears off plastic, goes organic, becomes a bicycle nut, turns off his power, composts his poop and, while living in New York City, Generally turns into a tree hugging lunatic who tries to save the polar bears and the rest of the planet from environmental catastrophe while dragging his baby daughter and prada-wearing, four-seasons loving wife along for the ride.” While the guy is definitely extreme for most of us out there, his blog affords us a wealth of intelligent articles and posts with ample wit.

Please feel free to comment with additional tips, resources and thoughts on the matter!

Posted on Wednesday, July 11th, 2007 at 7:27 pm Follow responses via the RSS 2.0 feed.