Why design needs its own Panel on Climate Change
In January 2023, Al Gore told the audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos that young people are noticing that our political institutions are failing us when it comes to climate change. “Young people are looking at what we’re doing,” he remarked, “they look at the World Bank, and they say, ‘Oh, you’ve got a climate denier in charge of the World Bank, so why are you surprised that the World Bank is completely failing?” Here’s the thing: those young people are right. I’ve been thinking about his comments and I believe that Gore is on to something, but as a lifelong politician, his disappointment in the political systems of the world for failing to tackle climate change suffers due to his inability to see the forest for the trees.
What Gore’s polemic at Davos misses is that if our climate goals are limited to simply affecting political change, we cannot afford to not look at the economic systems that uphold our politics. Lamenting that elite financial institutions haven’t yet solved climate change to a room full of some of the wealthiest people on the planet, as Gore did, misses that point. Many of those people are as wealthy as they are because of the system that Gore’s rhetoric is looking to overturn. We cannot expect to see political change happen then unless we—global citizens with concerns about this crisis and skin in the game—establish structural checkpoints at the level of our individual industries and careers.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was founded in 1988 and since then, more than half of all the carbon dioxide that humans have emitted since the Industrial Revolution has been released into the atmosphere. In the wake of 27 Conferences of the Parties (better known as COPs) we have seen rising global CO₂ levels every year with the exceptions of 2008 (brought on by the Great Recession) and 2020 (COVID). Climate agreements in Rio de Janeiro, Kyoto, Copenhagen, Paris, and Glasgow have made some significant political progress, but haven’t resulted in decreasing global CO₂ emissions either. Governmental leadership is important but, critically, it is inadequate when it comes to addressing climate change because legislation is largely beholden to financial interests. Individual industries (think automakers, restaurants, construction, etc) need their own versions of the IPCC or COPs because the global economy determines social and political attitudes about climate change.
A thorn in the side
Designers are happy to exclaim that our discipline intersects with nearly every aspect of life that we can think of, and our skills can be the difference between thousands or even millions of dollars in profits. We, by merely firing up Photoshop, Figma, or whatever tools we use each day affect the balance sheets of the planet’s millions of businesses. But what do those businesses stand for? And what do they profit from? A profit-at-all-costs mentality has absolutely defined the dominant design paradigm—practices like planned obsolescence; the use of cheap materials and labor; and quick project turnarounds that come at the expense of environmental research are a result of a design mindset that is bound to harmful capitalistic methods in ways that have left many designers struggling to imagine what a design set free from capitalism would even look like. We need to redesign the way we design, and that will require distancing our routines from relying on these types of practices.
The most dangerous threat to climate action isn’t politics directly. It is the money that directs political action, and for designers in particular, the money that directs industry goals and the types of projects that we set out to design. What I contend, is that design needs a thorn in the side, an agitator, of sorts, to spur the industry towards inclusive and environmentally-friendly design standards. What I propose is this—we need our own versions of the IPCC and COP conferences. Let me explain:
A panel on climate design
A design-centric, IPCC-like organization—that I’ll just call an International Panel of Climate and Design (IPCD); that would look at topics like sustainability, diversity, accessibility, and truth in advertising and marketing is sorely needed in our industry to remind us of the areas in which we still have to improve, and celebrate any innovations or victories that we make on behalf of the climate or climate-affected peoples. This IPCD, like the existing IPCC, would be formed from a diverse and globally represented body of designers that have sustainability and climate justice in mind. What is more, this body would take the science directly from the IPCC’s assessments and transform that information into actionable nuggets for designers of all kinds to work toward. When we can connect climate issues to our everyday lives, we are more likely to be concerned about those issues, but, in addition, connecting those issues to the levers that we push and pull every day as designers will make it more likely that we feel empowered to make change happen.
Many climate- or sustainability-focused organizations exist that look to teach sustainable practices to all kinds of corporations. This is a good thing, but in practice, this means that they are, in a sense, symbiotic with industry; they provide training, certifications, and good PR to companies looking to improve their image. They do educate and provide valuable services and I am not suggesting that they go away or that they are not part of the solution, but they have no teeth, so to speak, to improve practices industry-wide. Nor do they really have incentives to do so as their business models are predicated on having non-sustainable businesses pay them to learn how to do better in sustainability or climate arenas. This is why a design IPCC-like group is needed: we need to raise the climate bar for all designers and show us the stakes that our actions have on the globe in a way that isn’t just for those that pay to be informed.
A conference on climate design
We need a conference like the Conference of the Parties (COPs) that speaks on topics that are relevant to our jobs as designers and that formulate a series of Project Drawdown-like steps that help us meet climate goals. These conferences need to be fully accessible to anyone who wants to join; they should be digital and downloadable for others to watch as well, without the exclusivity that is expected when it comes to paid conferences. What a design COP would provide is educational materials and access to forums for networking—places like Climate Designers, for example. Designers need spaces to network with other designers and see what the industry is doing to address climate issues—and to see how they can as well. This would not be the only climate action-focused conference for designers by a longshot, so what would separate this from the others would be its international reach, its connection to the above-mentioned IPCD, and that it would include climate information for all types of designers. Critically, it would not be a replacement for any of the existing climate and design conferences but hopefully, act as a gateway to their more focused content.
There should be no bar to entry for this kind of climate-based information and access. Only the richest people get to go to Davos. Influencers and celebrities and government officials get to go to COPs. The people that they are ostensibly looking to save don’t get to go unless they are invited—which usually means they have to become extraordinary in the eyes of the event’s organizers. For every Xiye Bastida, Greta Thunberg, or Vanessa Nakate there are countless millions who are dependent on the whims and trends of whatever goes on in those conference rooms. In the design world, conferences are often expensive, in-person (less so after COVID), and full of information and access that is exclusive to conference-goers. It won’t surprise any of you that this often excludes many of the poorest people in our industry that could really use the skills and tools discussed there. Educational discounts are not the answer here either; access to college is not a possibility for many would-be designers from poor or otherwise marginalized communities who cannot afford the student debt, much less a reduced rate to a conference they’d still have to pay to travel to.
Transforming thought into action
The bottom line for this entry is this: Gore was right that organizations like the World Economic Forum (and the World Bank) are failing us when it comes to climate change. That’s because political action will always find itself beholden to economic interests. Designers cannot, just by being designers, affect how Shell or Exxon decide to spend their money*, but we can effectively communicate how our part in those businesses impacts their profit margin. We can communicate how our design work affects consumption habits around the world. We are communicators at our core; we’re paid for our skills in communicating a client’s value to their existing and potential customers. Our current paradigm of design is one that perpetuates consumption and it doesn’t need to be. We have our hands on levers that can move the world; what we need is a fulcrum that increases our power. This body or panel can be just such a fulcrum.
To conclude this entry, I want to end by suggesting a few things that this organization or panel should look to do in a very basic sense: it should provide relevant journalism—through articles, videos, and podcasts—to designers so that they may be educated on climate issues, it should perform outreach to the design community through easily accessible conferences, it should advocate for increased access to design education, it should promote and demonstrate increased environmental and professional standards for all designers, and it should elevate marginalized voices while promoting diversity in the design field.
What we need as an industry is to be reminded that what we do shouldn’t just be to the benefit of our employers, but it should benefit our global community as a whole. Climate change is exacerbating the existing marginalization of communities just as fast as it is creating new marginalized peoples. We need a sharp reminder of our global responsibility—not to guilt us, but to help us design an entirely new system that is proactive to climate threats; one that is led not by elites or governments, but by those who truly have skin in the game.
So, call-to-action time
What would you like to see an organization like this do? Who do you think should be involved? Do you want to see Climate Designers help to create this Panel? Sound off in the comments section over on our Mighty Networks site!
*Speaking of how they spend their money, after an incredibly profitable year, both Exxon and Shell are slowing down their investments in renewable energy and Exxon has backed off funding on the algae-based fuels that they have been using as a greenwashing front for the past decade. Profits first, planet second (at best). https://grist.org/economics/bp-exxon-shell-backing-off-climate-promises/
Reading recommendations for this entry: CAPS LOCK by Ruben Pater, The Intersectional Environmentalist by Leah Thomas, All We Can Save (edited) by Drs. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katherine Wilkinson, and Fire and Flood by Eugene Linden
Be part the conversation
Perspective is a gift and with each new perspective the Field Guides get better.
Whether you are a prospective writer/contributor, a commenter, or a reader: new experiences, new connections, and ways of seeing the world leave us richer than before.
This entry was written by
Matt McGillvray
Matt is a designer and illustrator living near Portland, Maine, and has been working for more than a decade doing branding, illustration, web design, print design, social media posts, and even a little SEO.
When not designing he’s usually reading, writing, or running. His current big writing project is a book about design and climate change. He is a chronic teller of puns and will not apologize for that.