Vancouver agency smashLAB has launched Design Can Change, an initiative that urges designers to become aware of the affect they have on the environment. On his blog, Eric Karjaluoto offers some stunning numbers, writing, “…if you are a member of the AIGA, you take part in purchasing or specifying over $9 billion of printing and paper per year. At the risk of sounding obtuse, I have to say, ‘That’s a lot.’ Let me give you another number: 81 million tons. That’s the amount of paper waste you and I helped generate over the past year. How about this one? More than a million. That’s how many species are expected to be at risk of extinction by 2,050 as a result of global warming. Another? $11 billion. That’s the average cost of climate-related disasters in Europe during the 80s and 90s.”
The Design Can Change initiate provides designers, and everyone in the industry for that matter, information they can learn from and tools they can use to reduce the effect our work has on the environment. It’s an admirable effort. While it’s not quite live yet, designers can also take a pledge to work within Design Can Change guidelines and be listed on the site for like-minded hiring organizations to review.
If you have any interest of the effect this industry has on the environment, a visit to this site would be well worth your time. If you’re one of those people who don’t give a shit, well, you can just keep creating mindless collateral, 98 percent of which gets tossed in the trash or someone else to deal with.
