To what extent can a graphic designer's practice be

considered sustainable and ethical in capitalist economy?

In this essay I am going to discuss the ethics & sustainability of two design
studios and also the creative director of Innocent drinks. I'm arguing, to what
extent, even in the capitalist system, how these design studios, can be
perceived as ethical and sustainable in a western capitalist economy? In order
to do so, this essay will focus on the problems of capitalism and I will be
explaining the difficulties of being an ethical and sustainable designer whilst
working for external clients. I will compare the actions of three design studios
and I will be applying theories from different writers on design and ethics &
sustainability.

Capitalism is the ideological system that we live under in the UK and it's
prominent throughout the whole of the western world. It's relevant for the
context of this essay because it is a force, which changes individuals into
being less likely to be concerned with topics such as ethics and sustainability.
Capitalism has become so deeply embedded into our society that our culture
and traditional values have been eradicated by the way businesses make
money. John Grey considers this point when he states, 'continuously
transformed by market forces, traditional values are dysfunctional and anyone
who tries to live by them risks ending on the scrap heap.' (Grey, J. 2011).

Capitalism is kept thriving by this artificial need to consume more. John Grey
states that capitalism has been 'described as creative destruction and no one
can deny that it's been prodigiously productive.' (Grey, J. 2011) One of the
main problems of capitalism, from an environmentalists point of view, is that
this insatiable desire for consumption will end up wrecking the planets
irreplaceable resources.

One of the most influential theorists on ethical design, Victor Papanek,
succinctly sums up this system by saying; 'Most things are designed not for
the needs of the people but for the needs of manufacturers to sell to people.'
(Papanek,V. 1983, Page 46). The employees who work within the graphic
design and advertising industries have been moulded by capitalism to use
their skills to try to sell products. Consumables, which we inherently do not
have a necessity for, are transformed into something that we feel we must buy,
this system creates an influx of consumer products which pollute the world.
According to Papanek, there are 'seven parts' during the life cycle of a product
and for a company to be considered a sustainable model, zero waste and
pollution at each of the seven parts has to be achieved.

There are many different ways in which theorists describe in what ways
design can be considered 'good' design. The three different criteria of 'good'
design I will be concerned with in this essay are design that has a positive
social impact, design that has a positive environmental impact and design that
is honest.

Even though all of these criteria are interlinked Design which has a positive
environmental impact is possibly the most difficult to achieve as every aspect
of your practice has to be considered environmentally friendly. As Brian
Dougherty identifies this in his book 'Green Graphic Design',

'You will have to learn more, struggle against the status quo, and
possibly try things that no one in your organisation has tried before.
Your boss and/or client won't have the answers for you and you may
not appreciate your accomplishments. Furthermore, you will probably
make some embarrassing and costly mistakes." (Dougherty, B, 2008,
Page 18)

Brian Dougherty is also founding partner at Celery Design Collaborative,
which is the first design studio I will be analysing the work of in this essay.
Celery have developed as a studio which deals proactively with social and
environmental challenges and their company takes a whole systems
approach to designing sustainably and ethically. Image 1 shows an image of a
signage system that Celery designed for Elephant Pharmacy. Celery specified
a wide variety of non-vinyl solutions. Some of the wall signs were made of
laser-cut plywood letters and instead of using rigid PVC boards for many of
the signs at Elephant, they used flexible banners, some of which were printed
on EcoSpun recycled P E T plastic fabric.

A lot of time and effort goes in to researching the most environmentally
friendly materials and methods of production. In such a business driven
society, where time and money are the main restrictions, you can't always
guarantee that every aspect of production will be sustainable. In this project,
Celery Design were not able to completely eliminate vinyl from the Elephant
store as they did not have the time given by the client to hand paint some of
the letters onto the bamboo so the murals were printed on adhesive-backed
vinyl.

Dougherty states in his book that "Learning to be a green graphic designer is
simply a process of refining that internal compass that guides our design so
that it includes social and ecological considerations". (Dougherty, B, 2008,
Page 16) This is the thesis that the creatives and designers at Innocent Drinks
are using to promote their sustainability 'quest'. They claim on their website,
'It's part of our quest to become a truly sustainable business where we have a
net positive effect on the world around us.' (Unknown Author, 2014). They
also clearly make an effort to show their break through and improvements
throughout recent years in the production and the packaging of their products
and their charitable initiatives.

"Our 250ml smoothie bottle is special. Its fully recyclable and it also
contains recycled plastic. Weve been pioneering the use of food grade
recycled plastic ever since 2003 when we first introduced 25% post
consumer recycled content (rPET) to our bottles. We then took it all the
way to 100% recycled plastic in 2007." (Unknown Author, 2014).

This continual improvement in manufacturing bottles out of recycled plastics
and paper stocks is part of this 'sustainability quest'. Although an interview
with Joshua Blackburn, Founder of UK-Based communications agency
Provakateur reveals that mass production of plastic bottles is incredibly
damaging to the environment.

"Bottled Water is one consumer product that bears little scrutiny. It
consumes mountains of rubbish, costs a fortune and all the while
drinking water comes out of our taps for free in the UK and many other
countries. Bottled Water is the triumph of marketing over common
sense." (Micklethwaite, P & Chick, A, 2011, Page 31)

This continual improvement in making the packaging more recyclable is what
environmentalists want to see. However, a plastic bottle will never be the most
environmentally friendly solution to package a liquid, no matter what materials
are used in production. The packaging may be a big problem but a change in
the system of how product are sold and distributed could have a positive
environmental impact. A case study in Dougherty's book illustrates an
example of this.

'The Straus Family Creamery has developed an effective durable
packaging solution for its organic milk products which avoids many
tons of waste. The milk is sold in glass bottles, which require a $1.25
deposit. ! Which the retailers have agreed to collect the deposit on
each bottle and the used bottles that customers bring back to the store.
The 'average bottle is reused eight times and the return rate is about
95 percent.' (Dougherty, B, 2008, Page 84)

This type of packaging is called durable packaging, but the type of packaging
which innocent drinks use for their smoothies are called ephemeral packaging.
This is usually a lightweight, biodegradable type of packaging which is
designed to last as long as necessary and not much longer. Innocent drink's
smoothie bottles are back to 50% rPET now, after a dip in 2011 due to the
quality of recycled plastic, which had 'declined to unacceptable level'.
(Unknown Author, 2014)

Packaging has evolved throughout the recent capitalist society as the aspect
of the product that allows the product to be clearly differentiated between its
competitors and is a big aspect of what drives the desire to consume more
and more as a product can be valued higher due to its appearance on the
outside. Papanek uses the example of washing-up powder to explore this
point.

"Does the graphic design on a box of washing-up powder make it it in
any way better than the near identical powder in a box with a different
design? How about breakfast cereals or soaps? Is the enormous
amount of money spent on package design justified in any way?
Consider that these boxes are difficult - if not impossible - to recycle
because of the many coloured inks used to decorate them. The
cardboard must be de-inked. A costly process at present, and one that
yields a toxic runoff from the de-inking." (Papanek, V. 1995, Page 170)

Landor Associates are the third design studio I will be discussing in this essay.
They are a global brand consulting firm who have been around since the 40s
and who have pioneered many of the designing methods which have become
standard in the branding industry. On their website, they have a 'Green
branding & sustainable design' webpage which shows an image of one of
their products. Image 2 shows a product made of a green plastic, which has
embossed, the words 'We: Recycle, Made out of 90% post-consumer
recycled plastic. Which, on the face of it, seems like it would have a positive
effect on the environment. If the consumer is well informed however, they will
know that recycling uses energy, creates thermal pollution and is an industrial
process. Recycling is a solution to the excessive amounts of waste but even if
a material is recycled at the end of the life cycle of the product or if the
product is made from recycled material, the material will still be wasted at the
end of the life cycle. Interestingly, one of the biggest problems of plastics is
that 'they never go away. Nearly all of the molecules that have been pumping
out of the plastics factories for decades are still with us for centuries.'
(Dougherty, B, 2008, Page 143-144)

'Eco design moves beyond a focus on a single aspect of a product's
ecological impact, to consider the whole product life cycle.' (Micklethwaite, P
& Chick, A, 2011, Page 106) Clearly then, both Landor and Dan Germain
(creative director at Innocent drinks) could do a lot more to be considered a
sustainable and ethical designer and can also be accused of green washing
and confusing the consumers who buy into their products. Even considering
this, Landor boldly claims on their website that they do not support green
washing brands.

'We know how to demystify sustainability for your audience, using clear
language and transparent messaging to present your brands policies
and practices without green washing or making false claims.'
(Unknown Author, 2014, Landor Associates: Green branding &
sustainable design)

It's clear from looking at scientific sources that the state of our planet has
reached a critical point and our capitalist consumer society is to blame for
destroying the irreplaceable natural resources of our planet.

"6 degrees centigrade, what we're heading towards in terms of global
warming. And if you think about it, all of the weird weather we've been
having in the last few years, much of that is due to just one degree
warming. !. Sustainability has gone from a nice-to-do to a must-do,
it's about what we do right here, right now and for the rest of our
working lives." (Howard, S. 2013)

A design studio can use green materials and can produce zero carbon
emissions but the problem of sustainability is bigger than this, and messages
of positive social impact need to be sent out to a wider audience. The people
who set up Celery Design see their work as 'being concerned with much more
than the material aspects of graphic design, such as paper and print
manufacturing process. They explore deeper issues of behaviour and attitude
change with designers businesses and consumers.' (Micklethwaite, P & Chick,
A. 2011, Page 27). This exploration includes engaging with marketing plans
and business strategy so that their work is a lot more about adding value to
the brand.

One way that a graphic designer can be deemed more sustainable or ethical
is through their choice of the type of work they produce. This could mean the
different companies and organisations a designer will work for throughout
their career, the type of work the designer creates professionally or if the
designer takes time out or a pay cut from their normal jobs to pursue
something with more an ethical or sustainable cause.

A graphic designer based in the UK is allowed the freedom to choose who
they will work for and these choices will have a massive impact on how ethical
and sustainable this designer/ design studio is in the long run. What the
designer can do in terms of 'good' design will be affected by the ethical stand
points and sustainable strategies and business plans made by the company
or organisation.

It would harm a design studios ethical and sustainable principles to work for a
company such as BP. BP are a British oil company who, in 2011 was largely
responsible for one of the largest oil spills in U.S history, have been accused,
through a backlash in news articles in online reports, of green washing their
business in recent years. However, in 2000, BP underwent a massive
rebranding devised by Landor Associates. This rebrand switched the old
shield logo to a much brighter, more floral and natural looking symbol to
represent this green shift. The identity is described on Landor's website as
'Bright and bold, the identity evokes naturals forms and energy that represent,
respectively, BP's position as an environmental leader and its goal of moving
beyond the petroleum sector.' (Unknown Author, 2010)

'Communication is an absolutely critical part of the strategy from the
beginning, if you're not communicating your strategy effectively, you're
not getting the credit that you deserve by your shareholders, by your
consumers, by your partners. And if you're over communicating that's
also highly risky because you can be accused of green washing or
simply over stating your green commitment.' (Longsworth, A. 2010)

Green washing isn't technically being dishonest but it's similar to the
description which Michael Bierut gives in 'In Ten Footnotes to a manifesto',
'We're seldom asked to lie. Instead we're asked to make something a little
more stupid, or a little more blithely contemptuous of it's audience.' (Beirut, M.
2007, Page 58/59)

Consumers are constantly being tricked by green washed brands and they
are lead to think that they are doing good by buying products that are
environmentally friendly, however they are actually caught up in the cycle of
consumption that stimulates the economy within the capitalist state without
solving the problem of saving the environment.

'For the everyday consumer, the result can be a frantic cycle of
consumption fuelled by the best of intention: buying a branded 'I'm not
a plastic bag' but always forgetting to take it along to the supermarket'.
(Bolchover, 2002, Page 6)

By forgetting to use the bag, the consumer uses more of the planet's
resources than they originally would have done. This green washing of
businesses and products has conduced an artificial market, which makes it
increasingly more difficult to differentiate between the companies who are
genuinely trying to make a positive environmental impact whilst running a
businesses and who are using and who green wash their brand to cover up
their unsustainable products.

What's worse is that, turning your business green has actually become
profitable, within the capitalist system. More and more people are willing to
pay a higher price for greener products. Even the environmental partners of
Landor Associates mentioned in their YouTube videos, 'In China, Brazil and
India, consumers indicated a willingness to pay up to 30 percent more for
green products.' (Longsworth, A 2011) As being green is the new innovation
in the business world to make more money, we see another of Karl Marx'
theories become true.

'Capitalism transforms everything it touches, it's not just brands that are
constantly changing campaigns & industries are created and destroyed
in an incessant stream of innovation.' (Grey, J. 2011)

In a world where we are seeing a trend in people becoming more concerned
about the environment green design is becoming big business and we'll se
that 'within the next ten years, almost every graphic designer will be a green
designer to some degree' (Dougherty, B. 2008, Page 21).

Designer's can have the power over the consumers and the choices they
make. However, choosing who you work for can be the most difficult decision
as there are only going to be limited number of clients who invest they're
interests heavily into being a sustainable the rest will be clients who have little
interest in being 'green' but a strong interest in being seen as a green
business. Ken Garland, writer of the First Things First Manifesto in 1964,
confesses this issue.

"It's all very well talking about ethics, sustainability or politics, but
they've got to face their future with hard-nosed employers or clients -
and design is a buyer's market." (Roberts, L. 2006, Page 177)

If it is the case for a struggling graphic designer that they cannot get work with
ethically driven businesses then sustaining an ethical and sustainable design
practice can be challenging. Papanek reveals though, that 'It is a fact that the
designer often has greater control over his work than he believes he does.'
(Papanek, V. 2006, Page 234) Papanek also advocated that if every designer
produces one piece of 'good' design a year the social and environmental
systems within society, the impact would be hugely positive. Producing a
piece of 'good' design could mean working for a charity, working for no pay or
designing for the third world.

Throughout this essay, the issue of sustainable and ethical design and its
place within the capitalist system has been discussed. I began by looking at
some of Marxists' and Papanek's theories of how the capitalist ideology
persuades people to care less for issues of ethics and sustainability and care
more about the idea of profit and consumption. We then looked at problems of
linking the theories with the practical element of being a green designer. The
work and the book of Brian Dougherty has been discussed to show these real
world difficulties of being a 'green' designer. In the next section of the essay
Innocent's 'quest to be sustainable' was analysed and we realise that
businesses don't necessarily lie but they omit some information. We
discussed how Innocent Drinks have good intentions of being sustainable
businesses, but again these problems of applying sustainability in the real
world arise. The same analysis was then applied to Landor associates, using
the theories of writers such as Papanek again. We then asked 'whether this is
a form of green washing is they do not make any false claims?' This essay
proposes that it is possible to run a sustainable & ethical design studio within
the capitalist system but there are only a handful of studios that are genuinely
putting this into practice.


Word Count: 3,182
















Bibliography


Books and Journals

Beirut, M. (2007) Seventy-Nine Short Essays on Design, 1st Edition, New
York, Princeton Architectural Press

Bolchover, J. (2002) Vitamin Green, Phaidon Press Ltd

Dougherty, B. (2008) Green graphic Design, 1st Edition, New York , Allworth
Press

Mc Donough, W and Braungart, M. (2002) Cradle to Cradle: Re-making the
way we make things, 1st edition, New York: North Point Press

Micklethwaite, P & Chick, A. (2011) Design for Sustainable Change, 1st
Edition, London, AVA Publishing SA

Papanek, V. (2000) Design for the real world, 2nd Edition, London: Thames &
Hudson Ltd

Papanek, V. (1995) The Green Imperative: Ecology & Ethics in Design and
Architecture

Papanek, V. (1983) Design for Human Scale, Van Nostrand Reinhold
Company Inc.

Roberts, L. (2006) Good: An introduction to ethics in graphic design, 1st
Edition, Switzerland: AVA Publishing SA




Online

[Online] Howard, S. (2013) Steve Howard: Lets go all-in on selling
sustainability [Online] Available at:
http://www.ted.com/talks/steve_howard_let_s_go_all_in_on_selling_sustainab
ility.html [Accessed January 26th 2014]

[Online] Grey, J. (2011) A point of view: The revolution of capitalism [Online]
Available at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b013r2ld/A_Point_of_View_John_Gray_
The_revolution_of_capitalism/ [Accessed January 24th 2014]

[Online] Unknown Author. (2014) Being Sustainable [Online] Available at:
http://www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/us/being-sustainable/packaging [Acessed at
27th]

[Online] Unknown Author. (2014) Landor associates: Green branding &
sustainable design [Online] Available at:
http://landor.com/#!/about/capabilities/green-branding-sustainable-design/
[Accessed at 9
th
February]

[Online] Longsworth, A . (2010) Green Brands, Global Insight [Online]
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ech-
bZzS844&list=UUqdPFyKccEFYZO8VUY9Jgag [Accessed at 27th January]

[Online] Longsworth, A . (2011) Results of the 2011 Image Power Green
Brands Survey
[Online] Available at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5YYzYLv6oY&list=UUqdPFyKccEFYZO8
VUY9Jgag [Accessed at 27th January]

[Online] Unknown Author. (2014) BP: Moving beyond a global scale [Online]
Available at: http://landor.com/#!/work/case-studies/bp/ [Accessed at 25th
January]

Images

Image 1

Dougherty, B. (2008) Green graphic Design, 1st Edition, New York , Allworth
Press

Image 2




[Online] Available at: http://landor.com/#!/about/capabilities/green-branding-
sustainable-design/












Image 3




[Online] Available at: http://www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/us/being-
sustainable/packaging