Well, it turns out that the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) were curious as well. So, they went ahead and hired a few consulting companies (SustainAbility and KPMG) to go ahead and survey sustainability report readers.

While some of the responses were not all that surprising, the survey’s results did speak to the trends within the reporting industry.

SustainAbility Chairperson Sophia Tickell discussed the strategic use of sustainability reports.

Reporting was once a way to get sustainability issues onto the corporate agenda. Today the situation is reversing as a growing number of companies make ambitious commitments to sustainability. There is much business as usual but these targets matter because what gets measured gets done and — hopefully — reported against. This shift in where the agenda is set holds real potential to influence products and services — and eventually to shape business models of the future.

Reporting will be important but will need, explicitly, to make clearer links between sustainability issues and core business strategy — something that all stakeholders (including the mainstream investment community) seem to agree upon.

Read more of this story »

]]> http://inspiredeconomist.com/2008/10/28/sustainability-reports-who-reads-them-and-why/feed/ http://meganprusynski.greenoptions.com/2007/06/08/green-design-dialogues-a-round-table-discussion-with-green-designers-part-i/ http://meganprusynski.greenoptions.com/2007/06/08/green-design-dialogues-a-round-table-discussion-with-green-designers-part-i/#comments Fri, 08 Jun 2007 12:54:35 +0000 Megan Prusynski http://meganprusynski.greenoptions.com/2007/06/08/green-design-dialogues-a-round-table-discussion-with-green-designers-part-i/ "Mr. Green" poster design by Von Glitschka

Sustainability is becoming a pressing concern to the graphic design community. Designers are buzzing about it as they try to green their own practices and make sense of it all. In order to tap into this buzz, I organized a round table virtual discussion with several people involved in the design industry to chat about green design and the growing sensibilities of sustainability in our field.

"Green Design Dialogues" was born as a way to build the green design community and learn from each other. Our first discussion, via instant messaging, was May 25th. We touched on a broad range of topics relating to green design, which I will report on in a series of "Green Design Dialogues" posts in coming weeks. This week, I'll introduce the crew involved with our first Green Design Dialogue and relay each designer's experience with green design before summarizing our discussion.

Involved in the chat were designers from various backgrounds. Bryn Mooth joined us from HOW magazine, a wonderful graphic design magazine that has recently started covering more green topics. Dani Nordin, founder and principal designer at The Zen Kitchen, brought to the discussion her experience with running a small design studio that focuses on green design. Eric Benson is a Professor at the University of Illinois and the creator of the wonderful green design resource renourish. Eric Karjaluoto works at the interactive services firm smashLAB in Vancouver, and was involved in creating Design Can Change, an excellent call to action for the design community. Jess Sand is an independent designer and writer at her communications studio Roughstock Studios, who also writes a great blog on "sustainability for the rest of us," Small Failures. And of course, your humble Green Options design writer, Megan Prusynski, brought everyone together for the chat.

We started off our dialogue with a quick introduction and by sharing our own experiences with green design. Eric K began by explaining, "At smashLAB we simply started out by trying to find ways to make our studio more sustainable. Along the way, we realized that there were many like that, and as a result tried to make some information available that we could share with others in the community." Thus, Design Can Change came about from the firm's efforts at greening their own practices and desire to share what they learned.

Bryn from HOW magazine mentioned that she has noticed a shift from talking the talk to walking the walk in the design community. She said, "It seems like we're starting to move beyond the theoretical discussion of making design sustainable (a la the AIGA conference a couple of years ago) and more towards actually DOING things about it." HOW magazine has seen an increase in promotions from paper companies touting their new FSC certifications or green power usage.

Both Jess and Dani's journeys into sustainability began with their own lives and moved into their businesses. Jess mentioned that she began with trying to live more sustainably on a personal level, and started sharing her experiences because as a writer, it was important for her to do so. She also recently earned her certification in sustainable business management. Dani began her professional life as an environmental activist and discovered graphic design through her activism. She began a career as a freelance designer and noticed from places she worked how wasteful offices were and how little attention was paid to the environmental impact of projects and business practices. Her studio is now a green certified business.

My interest with green design began in college while I was studying art and graphic design and trying to meld what I was learning with my love of nature and my inner environmentalist. I wrote many a paper about design ethics and my thesis topic was socially and environmentally conscious design. However our interests in green design began, we are all now seeing an awakening in the industry and a focus on sustainability and change, which makes us green designers very happy!

Over the past few years, green designers have started out by doing their own research. Most of us had jumped into green design by simply immersing ourselves in it. Dani noted the importance of reading a lot for her, so that she knew a lot about the subject before getting started. Several of us have noticed that there are more resources about green graphic design now than just a couple of years ago, and, as Jess said: "With so much out there (some good, some junk), we're going to see a few places rise to the top. I just hope they're good ones" like renourish and Design Can Change.

Each designer's journey to sustainability is unique, and we've all had our stumbling blocks along the way. We discussed that each person approaches green living and green design differently, making different tradeoffs and decisions. It was certainly apparent to all of us that our industry was changing, and the green design movement was certainly getting traction. Eric K suggested that the surge of interest in green design stems from An Inconvenient Truth. What began as a grassroots movement has become a mainstream dialogue that is leading to action and change.

Businesses have begun taking an interest in sustainability as a strategy and a competitive advantage, and sustainable options are something designers are starting to offer their clients. Designers and communicators are taking responsibility for their work. We all agreed that sustainability was very important for the design industry because creatives are the makers of many things and communicators with many people. We are responsible for putting messages out there, we have the power to communicate, educate, open minds, or incite change. Graphic designers also use a lot of paper. As Jess pointed out, "Paper use has increased 20-40% since the advent of the paperless office." Dani mentioned her aversion to creating direct mail pieces since the beginning of her career.

Overall, people are beginning to take responsibility for their environmental impact and be more conscious of what they can do. As Eric K put it, "It's simply an issue of responsibility. We don't drive recklessly, and we shouldn't be living so either." Many industries are making changes as they learn more about environmental responsibility. The paper industry has recently made a huge push to go green and the design industry is changing along with it. The momentum is only going to grow from here… and designers will certainly play a role.

In the next post on Green Design Dialogues, I will share more about our May 25th discussion. We discussed the next steps for green design, working with clients towards sustainability, paper and beyond, and ideas for spreading sustainability within the design industry and the world.

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