Design Declares (D!) launches today: a climate emergency declaration campaign to encourage communication, digital, industrial, and service designers to take action on the climate and ecological crisis. Its aim is to connect and build a community of designers, studios, agencies, and institutions which are fed up with a lack of industry momentum and ready to act on the most defining issue of our times.
Initially formed by design and innovation consultancy Morrama and creative group URGE Collective, the campaign quickly received the full support of the Design Council, as part of their Design for Planet mission, and other organisations, including Driftime®, Snook, Studio Wood, and Thomas Matthews.
The campaign urges designers from all disciplines to acknowledge we are in an emergency of climate and nature and offers Eight Acts of Emergency as starting points. There is no requirement to already have policies and action plans in place, but there is an understanding that by signing you are committing towards an improvement in the reduction of your climate impact.
Acts of Emergency
1. Sound the alarm
2. Start the journey
3. Bring clients with us
4. Measure what we make
5. Redefine ‘good’
6. Educate, accelerate
7. Design for justice
8. Amplify voices for change
Jo Barnard, founder of Morrama, said: “As designers working within an industry driven by consumption and reliant on production, we have to acknowledge that we have a role to play in changing this system. This is the most important brief of our lives. Join us as we begin to design a climate-positive future.”
Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, Chief Design Officer at the Design Council, said: “We’re delighted to support Design Declares as it aligns completely with our Design for Planet mission. Helping the 1.97 million people working in the UK’s design economy build up new skills, find the confidence to change their ways of working and create new products and services is the challenge at hand to help us transition to a net zero economy and beyond.
Design Declares will provide a toolkit, which proposes a set of actions, tools, and insights for each Act to support designers in making changes. The toolkit signposts work by other designers and institutions, including the Design Council’s Design Value Framework. Voluntarily put together, the idea of the toolkit is a living and breathing document, continually updated, and developed as the Design Declares community grows.
“There is a wealth of information and resources out there, that designers often don’t know where to start. We want to offer guidance, accessible tools, and frameworks for change that help designers build their knowledge and empower them further.” Abb-d Taiyo, co-founder of Driftime® added.
Design Declares is open to individuals and institutions working in industrial, digital, graphic, communication and service design. To declare, you must be a company with an office in the UK employing at least one full-time designer. It also welcomes declarations from practising freelance designers who are registered as self-employed in the UK. All declarations will be named and published on the site.
Alexie Sommer, Design and Communications Director of URGE Collective commented: “If this year’s heatwaves aren’t enough to engage the design industry that there’s work to be done, then try to imagine what it’s going to be like in ten years’ time. We need to create an alternative and positive version of the future through design, and the time to do it is now.”
While this project has begun in the UK, the Design Declares team are actively seeking partnerships to expand the campaign around the world.
List of founding signatories:
- The Design Council
- Design and innovation consultancy Morrama
- Creative group URGE Collective
- Design and impact agency Driftime®
- Industrial design agency Studio Wood
- Service design agency Snook
- Communication design studio thomas.matthews
- Product, space and service design studio Pearson Lloyd
Featured Photo by Matt Palmer on Unsplash
