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On May 14th, the good folks at Continuum hosted the fourth Designers Accord Town Hall, rallying Beantown's sustainable design community for a candid discussion on their design practices. Here's the recap from the discussion, which ranged from fired up to down-to-earth.

Dave Laituri, founder and partner of Sprout Creation, kicked off the evening by sharing his company's journey to create the Vers iPod sound system--real wood, hand-crafted audio systems. At the helm of Sprout, Dave is trying to make a "dent in this sustainable thing" with every aspect of his product--from material sourcing and supply chain influencing to packaging and take back programs.

Guided by the belief that "ideas enacted are more important than ideas," Dave shared with us lessons from the frontlines of trying to infuse "better" into his product: better sound, better design with minimized environmental impact. It's here that he introduced us to Less Brown. This isn't a partner, investor or key stakeholder; but rather, it's the idea that in this pursuit of sustainability we shouldn't talk about the destination of being green--because like the holy grail, you'll never get there. There's always something better you can do. Green is never a final destination.

Here's an excerpt from a blog post in which he talks about his "Less Brown" mindset. It's here that a simple "How can we be less brown?" question to his manufacturing partner in China led to the elimination of those annoying little twist ties to hold wires together that come in every box of electronics. From this 30 second question, they were able to eliminate 6 miles of twist tie material in their packaging. As he writes in his blog:

"In our view, there’s no such thing as a 'green product' – all products require energy and resources to produce, have to be transported, used, repaired and 'managed' at the end of their life. Our goal was to simply be 'less brown' wherever we could – reduce our impact in as many places along the supply chain as possible, no matter how small -- and still deliver a quality product that could 'sustain' the business at the same time. 'Green' may be the grand vision, but 'less Brown' is how you actually get there.

For Dave, the imperfect implementation of an idea--rather than waiting until everything is perfect--is a good strategy to take on this road to sustainability. Think of it as a hundred tiny choices--taking a staple out, using soy ink, removing the use of plastic bags, pulp trays and so on--that add up to an impact you can measure.

Anne Katzeff from Ask Design then took the conversational lead and talked about the importance of "authenticity." And the difficulty of defending ourselves against greenwashing. She wondered how to guard against the endless stream of "green" messaging that dilutes our understanding and leads people to make well-intentioned but un-informed purchasing decisions. She then pushed the group to think about how we can have authentic conversations around sustainability with our clients.

One of the Accord's "requirements" is to: "Initiate a dialogue about environmental and social impact and sustainable alternatives with each and every client." How do we do this in our day-to-day businesses? How do we effectively talk about these issues? Anne shared that one of her clients, after Anne steered the conversation to sustainability issues, asked her: "What happened to you? Did you get religion?"

People suggested that defining a point in the project where sustainability will most dramatically affect the client and the end product is key. Ask: How does it relate to your business? The price point? The consumer? Clients generally don't care that you care about sustainability. But if you can help quantify how and why it's good for their business, then that's always a good way into the dialogue. Ultimately the group reached a consensus that if there's not a sustainability commitment from the top, it's a tough journey.

The conversation steered to the personal and Anne asked the group that as designers how can you make sure you're only working for brands that support your values? How do you choose between your livelihood and working for a brand that may conflict with your personal beliefs?

Mark Bates, a Principal of ID and Sustainability Champion at Continuum shared a bit about Continuum's recent journey to not only reduce their own operational impact; but to start to consider how to address the more complex and wily issue of how to measure their "practice impact." So the question becomes: How do we measure the impact of the things we've helped design? Operationally, we can recycle, be good e-stewards of our techno trash, compost, manage heating systems, reduce energy consumption, buy alternative power credits, swap out light bulbs, reward commuting and so on but ultimately, what is our impact as designers? (You can download Continuum's carbon footprint report here and learn how they're trying to reduce their footprint to zero.) What's the impact as consultant who help design pampers that are sold around the world? The answer is elusive; but Mark stressed Continuum knows it has to be a significant impact. So what can we do as designers to bring our impact down through the influence we have with clients. This is the challenge he stressed Continuum is now facing.

Mark echoed Dave's sentiment of the importance of taking a lot of little steps. He referenced the Okala guide as a good lighthouse resource. Sema Pro software allows them to conduct "lite" LCAs at the start of every project to understand material options. And then he shared with the group a quick recap of the consumer research study Continuum conducted called Colorblind.

Mark also stressed that the best thing they've done as a company is to work with Ben Linder at Olin College to create a Sustainability 101 course. Linder customized the course, gearing it towards the context of Continuum's work. Everyone in the company--from brand strategists to engineers, product developers to graphic artists—has been through the course which has given the company a common foundation and base understanding of sustainable issues and challenges.

For Continuum, the goal is to integrate sustainability into everything they do. Mark summed up his comments by recognizing that at some point, sustainability will be a given. The real question is, what is the rate of change?

Bridget Nickol took the floor next. Bridget is an intern at Hasbro in Rhode Island for the semester (where she's busy making image boards all day long for inspiration for her corporate colleagues) while also a student at University of Cincinnati. She shared her frustration with the lack of focus on sustainability or social design in her design curriculum. And bemoaned the reality that all this developing young talent is focused primarily on aesthetics and ergonomics: how to make things look nice. With a desire to apply her talents to the bottom of the pyramid, she's met with bemused questions by her student friends who wonder how she'd make a living from working with "those people" and trying to solve "their problems."

This prompted Jince Kuruvilla, also an intern at Hasbro and a U of Cincinnati student, to join the conversation. Faced with a class assignment to design a power tool, Jince tried to recast the brief and designed hand-powered clippers for the bottom of the pyramid instead. He found a hemp alternative to plastic but soon realized he was fighting an upstream battle even in the supposedly expansive and experimental environment of design school.

Both Bridget and Jince raised a flag around the need to help educate the educators around the importance of sustainable and socially relevant design.

Terry Swack from Sustainable Minds brought the conversation home and provided the perfect antidote to Jince and Bridget’s craving for a meaningful "sustainable education." She recommended the two blogs on her site that are chock full of incredible content. One blog is headed by a team of designers, engineers and industry experts who write about real world challenges and solutions. The other, called Ask the Experts, brings the insights and practical solutions by authors of Okala guide to bear on the latest sustainability issues facing product developers.

Read more, including some choice sound bites, via the Designers Accord's wiki post here. Thanks to all who came out to support the Designers Accord's ongoing conversations!