It’s been quite a while since the last Sustainable Studio column, thanks to a nasty car accident at the end of the summer followed by the inevitable catch-up of client life. Now that I’m in full swing once again, it’s about time we get back to the business of sustainable design practices!

One of the biggest challenges we face as designers is sourcing quality materials and printing that are also cost-competitive. We’re often fighting client budgets as it is, and adding an eco-preferable criterion would seem to limit us even further. But this plays into a myth that not only hamstrings our ability to produce eco-friendlier design, it also limits our ability to really get creative with new materials and printing options.

As businesspeople, we hold a lot of power in these purse strings of ours. And as designers, we fund a wide array of industries. According to Design Can Change, “AIGA members alone specify or purchase $9.1 billion in printing and paper, $650 million in photography and film, and $463 million in computer products.” So if you think your spending habits don’t make a difference, think again. It’s because designers and their clients have started demanding better alternatives that companies like Mohawk Papers and Neenah Paper have implemented carbon offset and renewable energy programs, and industry associations like the Sustainable Green Printing Partnership have sprung up.

Creating a Set of Criteria: Make It Meaningful

So just what makes a vendor sustainable? Is it as simple as finding a printer who stocks recycled paper? There are currently no strict definitions for what makes a business sustainable, unfortunately, so it is up to each of us to find a system that is both meaningful and practical. As a San Francisco-certified Green Business, I have a simple yet stringent purchasing policy in place for Roughstock Studios. I assign a single point for each of the following attributes that a potential vendor meets:

• Vendor is local (within 100 miles).
• Vendor has a formal waste reduction/recycling policy in operation.
• Vendor has a formal energy reduction policy in operation.
• Vendor has a formal toxic reduction/processing policy in operation.
• Vendor has a formal employee benefits program in operation, including living wages and health care.
• Vendor has a formal eco-preferable purchasing policy in operation.
• Vendor is certified by BAGBP, Co-op America, or other viable monitoring group.
• Vendor products are recyclable (1/2 point).
• Vendor products are produced using direct renewable energy.
• Vendor products are made with non-toxic or less toxic materials,
• Vendor products are made from recycled materials.
• Vendor products are minimally packaged (1/2 point).
• Vendor participates in a third-party certified renewable energy or carbon offset program (1/2 point).
• Vendor is independently owned and operated.
• Vendor is union run.
• Vendor donates money, services or products to charitable or community organizations.

Suppliers with at least three points-while still meeting my standards for quality, price and customer service, of course-get purchasing preference. Vendors with higher scores get a heavier preference. This system is easy to implement, and gives me a straightforward way to judge the sustainability of any given vendor. It’s important to note that I don’t make these criteria a requirement; by giving weighted preference to sustainable businesses, I support sustainable enterprise without limiting my (or my clients’) options.

Locating Sustainable Suppliers: Look Beyond the Obvious

Once you’ve determined how you’ll choose your vendors, you’ll need to go out and find a few that can meet your requirements. But remember: we’re not just talking about printers, here. When implementing a sustainable purchasing policy, be sure you look at everything you buy. This includes office equipment, software, supplies, services, subcontractors, and utilities. By expanding our financial reach, we can keep pushing other businesses to take these issues seriously.

If you’re located in a major metropolitan area, your chances are good of being able to find at least one or two vendors that can meet your needs for any given product or service. But if you’re located in a more rural area, you may need to get creative with your search. Try calling your local environmental department to see if they have a list of approved vendors you can use, or check out the resources below to begin your search (hint: bookmark this article so you can return to it anytime you need to buy something),

Paper

• Conservatree directory
• Treecycle directory
• Forest Stewardship Council directory

Printers

• Waterless Printing Association
• Printing Industries of Northern California (use keyword search for “green” or “sustainable”)
• Sustainable Green Printing Partnership (directory expected to go online in June, 2008)
• Sustainable Forestry Initiative certified printer PDF
• Forest Stewardship Council certified printer PDF

Packaging

• MN Reusable Transport Packaging Directory
• Sustainable Packaging Coalition
• Ecolect
• Materials directory Biodegradable Products Institute

Equipment and Supplies

• Energy Star
• Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool
• Co-op America Office Supplies directory

Utilities

• Green Power Network directory

General Business Directories

• National Green Pages
• Recycled Products Directory
• EPA Supplier Database
• Business Alliance for Local Living Economies

Local Government Programs

• Alabama
• California, Bay Area
• Hawaii
• Maine
• New Mexico
• Oregon (Portland)
• Washington (Kirkland)

Building a Relationship: Just Ask

Don’t forget that your local supplier may very well be implementing sustainable practices without advertising them. That’s why it pays to initiate a conversation about these issues when you begin shopping around. The process doesn’t have to be adversarial, or time consuming, In fact, it’s a great opportunity to get to know your suppliers and learn about how they do business in general, which can only serve to strengthen your relationship and improve customer service.

Start by asking general questions about their practices

1. Ask if you can follow up with a detailed list of questions (if you so choose).
2. Be ready to offer information should the supplier seem unsure or appear interested in learning more about the issues.
3. Follow up with a sincere thank you. When suppliers are rewarded for their engagement with the issues, or for their sustainable practices, they will be more likely to expand their efforts. Let them know you appreciate what they do by telling them-and giving them your business.

With these simple steps, you’ll find that implementing a sustainable purchasing policy is simply a matter of paying attention and exploring all your purchasing options. In the end, you’ll benefit from an expanded roster of dedicated suppliers and the ability to offer your clients more and better choices.

Jessica Sand | Principal | Writer and Designer
Small Failures: Sustainability for the Rest of Us | Bar Stories | Roughstock Studios | BoDo Author | The Sustainable Studio

Wal-Mart recently made a decision that you need to know about: the country’s largest retailer announced that beginning in 2008, “packaging sustainability will be a formal part of [the company’s] purchasing decisions.” That means that over 61,000 suppliers will have to revamp their packaging if they want to continue working with the retailing giant. Now take a wild guess at who will ultimately be responsible for specifying these sustainable packaging materials and creating accurate label designs. That’s right: the honors land squarely with you.

But this isn’t a simple case of Wal-Mart twisting the arm of its supply chain; in fact, Wal-Mart’s environmental requirements may very well be a financial boon to your design practice. Last month’s Sustainable Studio described the ways in which greening your operations can significantly reduce your overhead; I’ll now share the ways in which it can actually increase your revenues, both directly and indirectly.

Add Value to Your Services

People are increasingly recognizing that sustainability is worth paying for—just look at the organic foods market, which has grown an average of 20% every year for the past two decades despite what was once considered prohibitive pricing. Nowadays, consumers aren’t the only ones willing to pay for the added value of not harming the environment; a recent Gallup Small Business Index poll revealed that fully two thirds of business owners surveyed indicated they would pay more for green services. Even AIGA points out that “Designers have an opportunity to create measurable ‘triple bottom line’ value for their clients by viewing their design and production decisions—a highly visible public expenditure of clients’ funds, if not a major portion of their total expenditures—through a lens of sustainable business principles and ethical priorities.” The implications are clear: sustainable practices can make your studio much more attractive to design buyers.

Manage Your Risk

Risk management is not, admittedly, the sexiest topic in graphic design. But independent design shops would be well advised to seriously consider how they mitigate their risk level in such a rapidly changing economy. There is, of course, the inarguable cost of energy, which continues to rise and impact supply costs and overhead. Imagine if you could counter those costs by reducing your energy use and finding cheaper sources of renewable energy.

There’s another kind of risk you need to address, too: your competitors are already implementing greener practices that are setting them apart and making them more appealing in the eyes of design buyers. According to Graphic Design USA’s 2007 Print Survey, “designers are adopting a new framework…that seeks to…encompass notions of sustainability.” As government, business and consumers continue to embrace sustainability, can you afford not to join them?

Increase Employee Productivity

For studios with employees, implementing sustainable practices can have dramatic effects on morale, turnover and productivity. To begin with, a firm with a clear environmental and sustainability policy is much more likely to attract a generation of design students who increasingly identify with sustainable practices.*

But you also need to invest in your human capital—your employees—to get the most from them. This might include offering a benefits package adjusted to their specific needs, a livable wage, soliciting and implementing employee suggestions, offering incentives for community service or in-house green practices, or any number of other options. Ideas like these can create a stronger employee commitment to your studio’s success. And employees who share such a commitment have continually demonstrated increased productivity, better customer service skills and lower turnover rates than their disconnected counterparts.*

Build Brand Equity

One of the most significant areas of improvement that a commitment to sustainability can bring is increased brand value in the marketplace. As much as we’d like to believe that our portfolio speaks for itself, sustainable practices are increasingly playing a role in the design buying process. This is evidenced both directly, in the form of more corporate environmental reports being issued, and indirectly, as organizations (like Wal-Mart) apply greener practices to their printed materials. “Designers,” says AIGA, “…can create special value and play a crucial role in supporting the requirements of business to be environmentally and socially responsible.”

But you don’t need to brand yourself as an exclusively “green business” to see the benefits. “Customers’ decisions are driven by their perception of your reputation—both in delivering a great product and in doing it in a responsible fashion,” writes Chip Conley in Marketing That Matters. He goes on to describe an Edelman PR Worldwide study that found “corporate reputation was the second most important driver of customer demand only after the perception of the quality of a company’s products or services.” With Wal-Mart’s latest packaging policy just the tip of the iceberg, companies will begin to seek out designers who are known for their ability to guide clients through a sustainable design process and who are familiar with best practices in sustainable design.

Clearly, there can be no denying that demand for sustainable design in the consumer marketplace is growing. Integrating sustainable practices into your business model—throughout your operations, your design workflow, or your marketing approach—can ensure your studio’s longevity, strengthen productivity and, ultimately, positively impact your financial bottom line. Next month, I’ll provide a beginner’s roadmap to these practices so you can start on the path towards a more sustainable studio.

Jess Sand | Principal | Roughstock Studios
Author, Small Failures: Sustainability for the Rest of Us | BoDo Author | The Sustainable Studio

How much money have you invested in design software, computer equipment, marketing your business and so on? The answer, no doubt, is a lot, not to mention your costs for electricity, gas, office supplies and other overhead expenses. It’s no wonder, then, that many designers think of sustainability as an added expense (and an unnecessary one at that). But what if it weren’t? What if you could integrate sustainable practices into your day-to-day business operations and actually reap financial rewards for it? The good news is, you can and I’m going to show you how. There are actually quite a few financial benefits to sustainable business practices, not all of which are immediately obvious:

• Cost savings
• Increased revenues
• Employee development
• Risk management
• Increased brand value

The beauty of sustainability is that it’s easy to start implementing simple changes today and see results almost immediately. Adobe cut their carbon dioxide emissions by 16% by reducing their electricity and natural gas usage; their initial investment has already paid for itself and they now save $1 million every year.

But you don’t have to be a huge software company to better your bottom line. In fact, small design firms are often at an advantage because of their size. Since small businesses are generally more susceptible to limited cash flow and changing market forces, reducing overhead even slightly can make all the difference. Not to mention the fact that our smaller scale gives us the ability to adopt new practices and adjust old ones easily and efficiently.

Of course, the quickest way to reduce costs is to cut back on expenses. Now, I’m pretty sure that Adobe’s Creative Suite isn’t getting any cheaper, so let’s take a look at which costs of running a design studio we can change. According to the Sustainability Purchasing Network, “When organizations choose sustainable products they can also avoid costs that are hidden in the upfront costs of traditional products, but have financial implications over the long term.” The following ideas are not exhaustive by any means-they are intended to serve as a quick and easy starting point. Just remember: the more baby steps you take, the further you’ll go.

Install compact fluorescent bulbs.

CFLs come in a range of lighting options so you don’t have to worry about monitor calibration or proofing issues. They may be pricier than standard bulbs but they last nearly ten times longer and use up to 75% less energy than standard bulbs do, which often translates into whole dollars off your monthly electric bill.

Power down your electronics.

Nowadays, manufacturers are producing EnergyStar-rated office electronics that suck less power from the grid, which means you spend less every month. Other simple ways to save money on your electricity bill is to plug your office equipment into a surge protector and flip off the switch when you shut the office down, rely on natural light instead of artificial (open up those curtains!), and heat/cool your rooms individually only as you use them.

Watch your water.

If you’re considering a remodel, be sure to install low-flow toilets and faucets. These items don’t cost much more than standard fixtures and they save thousand of gallons of water a year. But just because you may not be ready to remodel doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to save. Fix your leaky faucet or running toilet and save almost 10 gallons of water a day. If your office is landscaped, water only every 3-5 days during the summer (less in the winter). Watering only at night or early morning means less evaporation, which also means you need less actual watering time.

Waste not, want not.

Chances are, you pay your city to haul away your trash. Many cities offer discounts if you reduce your waste enough (here in San Francisco, 20 gallons or less qualifies you for a discount). Other ways to cut down on waste include using real dishes in the kitchen instead of disposables, bringing your travel mug when stopping by the coffee shop on the way to work, and buying products that use less packaging.

Recycle and reuse.

Designers love paper but nobody likes paperwork. Switch to a PDF workflow and save both money and time. Designer Dani Nordin of The Zen Kitchen says she “instituted a PDF workflow in the studio that makes proofing jobs significantly easier and saves printing costs.” She also bought a printer that easily turns out double-sided prints, which she insists has “saved money, time, headaches and trees.” I haven’t bought a single note pad since I started using all those not-quite-perfect printouts as scratch paper instead of simply tossing them. Electronics, old furniture and other items that you would typically throw out can often be either donated or recycled. If you’re unsure where to send them, do a quick search by zip code on Earth911.

Exercise your purchasing power.

Don’t fall for the myth that greener products are necessarily more expensive. If you can’t find cost-competitive recycled copy paper, for example, just use less of it. This is where you begin to see how all of your actions are connected to serve the larger goal of sustainability. But there are plenty of cheaper options out there if you just know where to look, from office supplies (DolphinBlue, Green Office, Give Something Back), to electronics (EnergyStar), to furniture (Ikea is surprisingly green, Baltix), to utilities (Working Assets, renewal energy list).

The above steps are all simple things that, when combined, can truly impact your overhead. It doesn’t require much extra time or effort-only the willingness to give it a shot. Try tracking your own gas, electric, water and garbage expenses for a few months to see where you stand. Once you have an idea of your patterns, implement as many of the above changes as possible. Keep tracking your expenses as you go, and watch what happens. Chances are, you’ll appreciate those smaller bills and start looking for other ways to financially benefit from greening up your studio. We all know, of course, that there’s more to your company’s profits than cheaper utility bills. In part two, coming next month, I’ll show you the indirect ways a sustainable studio can mean bigger profits. I’ll show you how to increase employee productivity, attract higher revenues, and beat out the competition by building your brand through sustainable practices.

Additional Resources:

• Choose Green Report-Office Supplies: Offers specific ways to replace your conventional office supplies with more sustainable options, including specific product recommendations.
• Green Office Checklist: An additional list of things you can do to green your office.
• National Green Pages: Co-Op America offers a directory of green businesses to help you find almost any office product you might need.

Jess Sand | Principal | Roughstock Studios
Author, Small Failures: Sustainability for the Rest of Us | BoDo Author | The Sustainable Studio

Can’t we make the logo bigger? At its heart, it’s a simple request but professional designers cringe at the lack of understanding it reveals about so many things: balance, composition, white space, scale. You can’t just make the logo bigger, or you’ll have to adjust possibly every other element of the design. This is the simple principle behind sustainability: everything affects everything else.

Yet we often fail to apply such an obvious principle at the macro level. We think about designing a package that the consumer will want to pick up and purchase, but we don’t think about where that package ends up (most likely in the nearest trash receptacle). This isn’t particularly the designer’s fault. There is so much conflicting information and the issues are so broad, that it can be difficult to really grasp what sustainability and sustainable design even mean.

It’s enough to make a designer give up and forget the whole the mess. But imagine if there were a way to approach the issues without overwhelm, without constantly feeling like you are swimming upstream. There is a way, and it starts with deconstructing the myths and misunderstandings that stand in the way of creative discovery:

Myth 1: Sustainability is a fixed result.

Stop now if you think sustainability refers to some utopian state of green perfection. Sustainability is a means, not an end (or as one designer at Ideo likes to say, “sustainability is a verb, not a noun”). It might best be compared to the creative process itself: every designer’s methods are different, but we each engage in questioning, thinking and exploring ideas. How we do so directly informs what the final design looks like, but the process is not the product. Sustainability is the learning curve and as such, it is a constantly shifting thing. Just as the way we think, question and explore changes depending on the design challenge, so the sustainable steps we take may change depending on the multitude of variables we’re faced with and the interplay of external forces. When seen along a continuum, the prospect of moving towards sustainability becomes much more manageable.

Myth 2: Sustainability is the same as being green.

I hear folks confuse these terms constantly; just because a product is “green” does not mean it’s sustainable. “Green” is a descriptive term used to indicate that a product or service conforms to certain environmental standards (I’ll discuss green materials in an upcoming column). Green is certainly good, but it is not the entire picture. So what, then, does “sustainability” really mean?

There are a number of accepted definitions among those who talk or write about it for a living, but they all basically say the same thing: sustainability is balancing what goes in with what comes out so that the entire process is regenerative in nature. Think about that high school physics class you took when you learned about the first law of thermodynamics: energy can be neither created nor destroyed (it’s simply reformed). Sustainability focuses on making sure that energy morphs into life-supporting forms instead of life-threatening ones, be they environmental, economic or social in nature. Sustainable design focuses on using our own tools of the trade to do the same thing.

Myth 3: Sustainability is boring.

This might be the saddest myth around. We’re creatives! If we can’t find a way to make sustainability interesting, then we’re not doing our jobs. Science doesn’t have to be dull; just remember the Golden Mean if you need proof that the science of nature plays an integral and fascinating role in design. Imagine: an auto manufacturer designs a car that actually filters the air entering the radiator so it comes out cleaner than it went in! Or, what if your next invitation design was mailed in a double-sided envelope that could be unfolded and used as a reply card? The challenges posed by a commitment to sustainability are not insurmountable, nor are they dry and lifeless.

Myth 4: Sustainability is expensive.

Gone are the days when recycled papers cost twice as much and look half as beautiful as their virgin counterparts. Nowadays trusted manufacturers like Neenah, Domtar and Mohawk offer recycled options, some of which are even produced with wind power. Not only are the materials competitively priced, we can often save money on production by creating sustainable designs. Reducing the amount of materials used inevitably results in cost savings while simultaneously decreasing raw materials consumption, which in turn reduces the energy consumption needed to produce and ship those raw materials, which in turn reduces the pollution created by that production process…are you starting to connect the dots? There are additional ways sustainable design can actually be profitable for a design firm in the long run: it can increase customer loyalty and retention, and offer a strategic advantage in the marketplace (I’ll discuss that down the road).

Myth 5: I have a limited impact.

I was appalled by a letter to the editor in a recent issue of Graphic Design USA, in which Michael Stanard, Creative Director of design firm One Zero Charlie, writes: “Graphic designers talk about social responsibility, recycled paper, soy inks, global warming, saving the planet and all that…However, designers are kidding themselves if they think they make any real impact on society.” Wow. But if this were really the case, there wouldn’t be a graphic design industry, would there? The truth is that there are over a quarter of a million graphic designers in the U.S. alone.* Thirty percent of them are self-employed, giving them even more decision-making power. Each of us alone has the power to influence vendors, clients, colleagues and the audiences who are eventually exposed to our work; imagine what each of us together can accomplish.

Don’t buy into the myths: sustainability is both an approachable and practical system for the environment and for your business. Next month I’ll show you how sustainable design can increase your profits, land you new customers and reduce your company’s operating costs.

Stay tuned to The Sustainable Studio,
Jess

Jess Sand | Principal | Roughstock Studios
Author, Small Failures: Sustainability for the Rest of Us | BoDo Author | The Sustainable Studio

Have you heard? Green is the new black, according to everyone from Vanity Fair to Forbes. This makes some of us shudder, as eco-everything becomes yet another trend to keep up on. We’ve all seen the pharmaceutical ads encouraging patients to self-diagnose, and we can sometimes feel like those doctors who are inevitably forced to prescribe drugs they know little about. Sure, we can spec recycled paper. We’ll just add a little soy ink. And that’s often as far as we go, having done our part. It’s safe enough, we reason, and the patient is happy again. Next, please.

But let’s be honest with ourselves, if not our clients: we don’t really know what we’re doing and some of us aren’t even sure why we’re doing it. All we know is that this trend keeps growing, sinking its roots into the public conscience like new media and that whole Internet thing. It’s a new reality growing up around us and we aren’t quite sure how to respond.

The beauty of this reality, however, is that we don’t need to know all the answers. We’re designers: every project we start requires a problem that needs solving. That problem is a seed, and our job is to grow it into an effective solution. Well, we’ve just been tossed another seed-the challenge of sustainability. As pundits argue with each other and throw statistics back and forth, the seed has already taken root. Our job as designers is to start asking the questions needed to keep it growing. How often do we water it? How much sunlight does it need? What is its nature?

Some of us don’t want to ask these questions. We’re not doctors or politicians, or any of the people who are supposed to step up and save us all. We’re just designers, trying to pay our rent on time. The problem with this approach is that we are also polluters and buyers of polluting products. The paper industry alone is the third largest industrial polluter in the U.S. We give them our money, but we don’t ask enough in return. We encourage consumption among our audience-we earn our very living from it, in fact-and we leave it at that.

But we simply can’t have it both ways. We can’t grace the covers of Fast Company as “Masters of Design” and the shelves of Target offering “Design For All,” and still claim that we are powerless to address this issue of sustainability. If we are the influencers that we claim we are, if we the solvers of problems and communicators of valuable information, then we must be held accountable for the part we play.

We know instinctively that there aren’t any easy answers to our questions. But as composer John Cage tells us via designer Bruce Mao’s Incomplete Manifesto, the only way to avoid paralysis is to begin anywhere. One such place might be Design Can Change. A digestible, fact-based resource, Design Can Change offers an overview of the issue, poses some new questions, and points us in new directions. Most importantly, it recognizes our power as designers to effectively move toward a sustainable future.

The very nature of design equips us well for this challenge: we understand collaboration, we understand how to approach problems from new angles, we get our rocks off by being on the cutting edge and yet know how to dutifully slog through the most difficult projects. And we know that it all begins with asking the right questions. In future posts, I’ll raise some of these questions and discuss additional entry points. My goal-and I hope, eventually, yours-will be to create various ways into the discussion about sustainability and to build a framework within which we can each play a part.

Stay tuned for next month’s Sustainable Studio,
Jess

Jess Sand | Principal | Roughstock Studios
Author, Small Failures: Sustainability for the Rest of Us | BoDo Author | The Sustainable Studio