Design Declares

Alexie

Conversations about Design Declares started in 2019 when Extinction Rebellion were very active, putting pressure on the government. The UK Government then declared a climate emergency and it started rolling from there, triggering a series of industry groups to start declaring: architects, engineers, music, culture, business, and fashion all declared.

I was having conversations within the design community. We started networking, we connected with the Design Council, created a survey, and then faced some stumbling blocks around how it would grow and be funded. We’d been learning from the other movements and then early in 2022 Jo Barnard and were introduced by the Design Council and we quickly brought in Abb-d Taiyo, Co-founder of Driftime® agency, and Aurelie Lionet, Senior Service Designer at Futurice.

There are four key aims for Design Declares: to bring the voice of the design industry together, focusing on service, digital, communication, and industrial designers; to support self-driven industry change and change in practice; to signpost excellence in industry and leadership; and to show the weight of the design industry and make demands of government. We have a framework of the 8 Acts of Emergency, we have a toolkit, and we have a community.

Alexie Sommer is a designer and communication expert who focuses on business sustainability. Co-Instigator of Design Declares, founding member of URGE collective, mentor for Fashion For Good, a consultant strategist with Pentagram, previously creative director at Thomas Matthews, and design director for creative at The Guardian newspaper group. Past clients include Interface, Useful Projects, ThinkUp, Constructivist, 100% Design, The Get It Right Initiative, EBO essential beauty oils, Arlette Gold, Foster & Partners, LOCOG, Mayor of London’s office, British Council, Rix Mix, Saatchi & Saatchi Design, and Philips electronics.

Jo

I am at the beginning of my journey in sustainability and design. think one of the key statistics that has stuck with me over over the last 18 months of learning about sustainability is from the EU Science Hub who stated that 80% of product related environmental impacts are determined during the design phase of a project. I’m an industrial designer, we make physical things, and so there’s lots of energy and resources that go into making, using, and then disposing of products. We have a huge responsibility, but also a huge opportunity as designers to make a difference in projects we’re involved in.

Jo Barnard is the Founder and Creative Director of industrial design and innovation consultancy Morrama. From the idea curation phase right through to manufacturing and distribution, she continues to push the boundaries of innovation with Morrama on a day-to-day basis in her work with both start-ups and scale-ups. Alongside championing of the role of sustainability to create a better design industry through the instigation of Design Declares, Jo is also one of the few female founders within the design, tech and product development industries and an Associate Lecturer at the RCA.

The 8 Acts progressively take you on a journey of learning, understanding, and acting on your impact as a designer, essentially acting to form an international manifesto for positive impact and practice:

1) Sound the Alarm

We are asking designers to sound the alarm and declare a climate emergency, essentially acknowledging and raising awareness of the climate and ecological crisis. So you’re basically saying “yes, there is a crisis, we acknowledge that and we’re going to do what we can to make a difference.”

2) Start the Journey

We’re not asking people who sign the declaration to have done all of these acts, but to commit to starting this journey through beginning to learn, speaking to experts, using Design Declares resources, and speaking to each other.

3) Bring Clients With Us

Many of us work with clients or stakeholders and we are asking how they can be brought along through meaningful conversations about what it means for their business. There isn’t an option for businesses to survive without making these considerations, so we don’t need to change people’s minds - they know the importance of this - but it’s worth acknowledging how we could start to make a difference together.

4) Measure What we Make

As designers we often get involved in a small sliver of a seemingly much larger process, so how do we measure our impact? We don’t necessarily yet know where a final product will be made, its impact, or its end of life, but there are tools to help us create comparison studies. We can carry out full life-cycle assessments with hindsight, but also to learn from for our next project.

5) Redefine ‘Good’

This is about encouraging and recognising excellence in sustainable and regenerative design, and showing that through media and awards aesthetic isn’t good enough anymore - we have to make sure there are criteria and consideration of projects across the industry to look at better practice.

6) Educate, Accelerate

This is about building networks. We are in a highly competitive industry and as designers we pitch ourselves against one another, and the challenge is to start collaborating and sharing knowledge, tools, and resources with.

7) Design for Justice

To understand the communities within which we are designing for and how they’re affected by climate, design impact, and a transition to a low carbon world.

8) Amplify Voices for Change

This is about designing alongside policymakers, campaigners, ecologists, scientists, and activists to use design skills for impact and to strengthen voices.

Why We Joined

Aurelie Lionet

The reason joined Design Declares and put time into helping bring it to fruition is because for a few years feel there’s been an appetite and attempts at initiatives to try and bring together the industry, and it’s the community aspect of this initiative I’m excited about. really feel like we can collectively define and learn around our roles and approaches as designers about tackling the climate and ecological crisis. As a collective, with designers coming from different backgrounds, industries, and sectors, we can have a massive impact not only by showing the weight of our concern, but also by learning and sharing from one another.

Angus Dick

I urged the design and sustainability community at my company, Arrival, to get behind Design Declares as a positive action statement, but also to nudge everybody to think in their day to day capacity, “are we doing enough?” and to think a little bit more critically as designers about our frustrations, and what we are missing from our day to day processes and knowledge fields that might help more ambitious sustainability targets. From our bus to our delivery van, we often take for granted that as a technology company making electric vehicles and leading our own material and components developments, that we’re doing enough already. However, recent global industry situations and encounters with the Design Declares initiative led me to reflect on where we might have done more. As much as Arrival have design principles encouraging us to act, minimise, reduce, and be mindful, there have been broader challenges when dealing with materials. When designing something such as a vehicle, made from hundreds of products and sub-assemblies, there is often a lot that can be overlooked, so making the right choices can be very difficult as many forces are acting upon those decisions.

Tara Hanrahan

We’ve got a climate emergency that demand’s action, and secondly I’m a huge advocate of responsible design in so many ways, so ThinkDo becoming a founding signatory was was a no-brainer. It aligns with my design practice, both as a creative consultant and my role in education.

I’ve been operating as a sustainable responsible designer within the sphere of communications, branding, and strategy for over 20 years and as an academic bringing this into the curriculum and research for about 10 years. What I particularly like about the 8 Acts of Emergency is how they build from declaration through to activation across different sectors and relationships. As a result, there’s an accessible entry point, the commitment, through to a demonstrable behaviour.

When I talk about responsible design practice, often do so through the lens of process and purpose. By process, mean designing in a way that’s resourceful of both materials and energy, that is system aware, and circular, that is ethical, inclusive of diverse voices, and is co-designed. In terms of purpose, I mean designing with an intent to have a positive, eco-social impact, maybe to champion causes, to facilitate behaviour change, and to be critical in exploration of solutions and challenges.

Ideally, both principles would be observed, but by having multiple entry points to understanding and applying responsible practices, there’s greater opportunity to bring people along the journey. think signatories will find some of the acts of emergency more accessible to them than others and they can evolve as their practice shifts in line with their commitments and the experiences they develop.