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