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Last night, the fine people at frog design, San Francisco hosted an interesting discussion on “The Many Shades of Green”. They assembled three very interesting individuals who explored the issue from three different perspectives. Dr Charles Ehrhart of CARE who looked at the global impact, of Kirsten Ritchie of Gensler who examined the corporate impact and of Ashley Menger of frog who talked about her personal experiences with the issue.

Some interesting themes and ideas emerged:

Dr Charles Ehrhart, Coordinator of CARE International’s Poverty and Climate Change Initiative

“Climate change is happening, we’ve got to try and stop catastrophic climate change.”

All non-profits need to make sure they are minimizing their environmental impacts and carbon footprint. This has significant implications for an organization like CARE who are shipping food supplies to people in need.

The importance of political action to try and change decisions that are being made today that will negatively impact generations for years to come- such as the decision to build more coal fired plants.

Design for a climate changed future. Don’t consider today, understand the realities of tomorrow and design for it.

Help the developing countries to grow by allowing them to do it with minimal impact on the environment.

Kirsten Ritchie, Director of Sustainable Design, Gensler

“The issue of the environment has moved from a moral imperative to an economic one.”

Branding matters with green because it’s a category created by environmental engineers, not marketers.

“It’s hard to spell Sustainability, let alone pronounce it”

EnergyStar and Leed were examples of good green branding in action.

Standards are everything. You can’t be green without the proof, so certification and standards matter. Organic labeling is an example of a system failure, but Fairtrade and Leed had got it right
 
Ashley Menger, Design Analyst, frog design

Ashley’s motivation was drive by her desire to making the green issue a personal one, where her experience could inform design decisions.

To do this, Ashley developed “Trash Talk” a program where "frogs" get the chance to carry their trash around with them everywhere for two weeks. Ashley talked about how this experience informed her projects and the story of her first piece of trash; a home thermostat that she later discovered contains mercury.

Trash Talk has now become a global, company-wide initiative with dozens of frog employees wanting to participate by carrying around their trash for two weeks and  blogging their experiences.

Overall, the evening added some perspective to the importance, complexity and communication challenges of the green issue.



Posted by Ed Cotton