The Designers Accord Town Hall + AIGA Charlotte

September 28, 2009 Filed Under: Events 0 Comments

In August, I had the honor of presenting at the Designers Accord Charlotte Town Hall which was a great success and the first ever in the southeast hosted by BOLTgroup. At the event I discussed what AIGA and the AIGA Center for Sustainable Design are doing to empower designers with resources to help them to create positive environmental and social impacts. I spoke about how AIGA endorses the Designers Accord to reflect its continued commitment to inspiring sustainable business practices in the design profession that imparts the value of sustainable design at every level. Some inititiaves that AIGA has been involved with which reflect this commitment are:

The Aspen Design Challenge
The Aspen Design Challenge is a global AIGA project to invite faculty and students from around the world to take on a major global problem and develop projects that demonstrate the value of design thinking. This year’s theme was Designing Water’s Future. Seven projects were selected from entries from 26 countries and were presented during the world summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen. Joanna Szczepanska from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, selected for her urban gardening design, VeggiePatch, was awarded the INDEX: | AIGA Aspen Design Challenge Prize, a $10,000 grant sponsored by the JL Foundation for implementation of her project.

CarbonCool
AIGA offers a CarbonCool program for designers and their studios to purchase carbon offsets for their business or personal life. You can offset your individual carbon footprint which equals about 24 tons for one year. Or for your family, small, medium, or large studio's footprint. You can also purchase carbon offsets for your flights.

The Center for Sustainable Design
In 2006, AIGA launched the Center for Sustainable Design which empowers design professionals in their roles as specifiers and communicators to foster the growth of markets for sustainable energy, materials, products and services through research, professional development, education, communication and outreach. The Center for Sustainable Design website is dedicated to providing designers with practical information regarding sustainable business practice with extensive resources, case studies, useful links and reading materials on sustainable design, sustainable living and sustainable business practice. The site also provides
11 questions to ask before you design, specify or buy anything which are incredibly useful for designers or anyone to reference.

Green Salons
The Center for Sustainable Design encourages local chapters to develop Green Salons to provide members and the creative community having an interest in sustainability with a forum for discussion. Over the past few years, these salons have been a huge success. Locally, AIGA Charlotte has hosted a few of its own including Be Green At Work - discussing small green steps you can take that help your workplace save money, reduce environmental impacts and boost employee morale and Design for a Greener Future - where designers discussed sustainable design, renewable energy and initiatives one can take to be environmentally responsible for your design and your clients. AIGA Charlotte is currently developing a green team and will soon implement a Green Salon event series called “Eat Your Greens”. This series will consist of a quarterly lunch event held at a local organic/farm-to-table restaurant. It will include a roundtable discussion for designers to openly talk about sustainable design solutions and how to engage clients into the fabric of creating innovative eco-friendly solutions that have positive impacts.

Compostmodern
The Center for Sustainable Design with the AIGA San Francisco chapter produced a very successful conference called Compostmodern. In 2004 Compostmodern started as a local AIGA San Francisco event and has blossomed into a premier conference devoted to design and sustainability. Designers, manufacturers and business leaders come together to find inspiration, share knowledge and explore real world opportunities for transforming products, industries and lives. In an effort to reduce its carbon footprint, this year, Compostmodern had the conference webcast and had various satellite events throughout the country. In case you missed it, you can still watch the speaker presentation videos and listen to the podcasts on the Compostmodern website.

In closing, I shared this this video which was commissioned by AIGA Maine for use in between speakers at their local Compostmodern conference back in May. I concluded with stating, “As designers we are enablers, we have the power to lead the way in communicating positive socially and ecologically responsible messages enabling our audience to take action to do good in the world.”

If you missed the event, here is an excellent recap of it on Core 77 with photos and links to all of the presenters.


About The Designers Accord
The Designers Accord is a global coalition of designers, educators, and corporate leaders, working together to create positive environmental and social impacts.

About Rachel Martin
Rachel Martin is a senior graphic designer and owner of Rachel Martin Design an eco-friendly graphic design studio in Charlotte. As a green advocate, she collaborates with eco-conscious leaders on a national level in marketing, packaging, product design, promotions, web development, architecture and more. In addition to being AIGA Charlotte's Membership Director, she is also an adopter of The Designers Accord, a member of Design Can Change and DESIGN 21: Social Design Network and involved with the AIGA Center for Sustainable Design.

Written by: Rachel Martin, Membership Director, AIGA Charlotte