My Prescription for an Ethically Designed Future

One of the graphic designer’s most trusted materials is paper. It has been the substrate for the majority of the printed work since the inception of the craft in the late 1800s. The impact of the print designer on our planet is most evident through a quick analysis of the paper and printing industries. Since 1961, the global consumption of wood and paper has increased sixty-four percent.¹ Designers have helped, through the design profession, to deplete the planet of fifty percent of its most bio-diverse forests and to fuel the need for oil (and consequently, help create air pollution) by choosing predominantly petroleum-based inks. Moreover, the printing industry is the third largest polluter² (behind automobiles and steel manufacturing) of our waterways and the air we breathe. On a typical day, a large paper mill uses trillions of gallons of water³, which must be treated for toxic chemicals before being released back into use. The paper industry is the lifeblood of the print designer, as it supplies the medium for ideas. However, the price we pay as a society for our creative work is the contamination of our basic life necessities: biodiversity, clean water, and fresh air.

If you look at only US consumption, the average American consumes 660 pounds of paper per year.⁴ Of those 660 pounds, 300 pounds are derived from paperboard-based packaging materials.⁵ This paperboard packaging predominantly comes from food-based products, where for every one hundred pounds of food waste thrown away by the everyday American, sixty-five pounds of packaging are also tossed into our landfills.⁶ This excess packaging accounts for a third of solid waste (sixty percent is paper-based) that we store for centuries in our landfills.⁷ America is only five percent of the world’s population, yet we consume around thirty-three percent of the world’s paper.8 Of all the tons of paper we use, Americans only recycle about fifty percent.⁹The rest is wasted—tossed into our landfills or incinerated and thereby adds more carbon dioxide to our atmosphere.

In order to limit our impacts on our planet, the following lists provide my ’prescription’ for the graphic design community so that we can begin to practice more environmentally conscious design.

The materials we choose should always follow sustainable principles of:

• Respect and care for the community
• Improve the quality of life, conserve Earth’s vitality and diversity
• Minimize the depletion of non-renewable resources (which means looking locally for resources)
• Change personal attitudes and practices to keep within the planet’s carrying capacity

Specific to graphic design, we should:

• Ask why. Why is this the best method?
• Ask how. How can we lessen impact?
• Ask what. What are the impacts of doing this?
• Design for re-use and/or longevity
• Design cyclically, not linearly
• Choose recycled and non-toxic materials
• Minimize waste (e.g. use entire press sheet)
• Minimize ink coverage
• Choose local vendors that use renewable energy
• Encourage others to follow this method

Our creative work and research should be geared towards finding ways to reduce paper consumption and develop alternatives to wood pulp to produce paper. Hemp, bamboo, and kenaf are viable fast-growing renewable resources for paper that could be commercially harvested to slow the deforestation of our planet. In the mean time, choosing paper that is 100% recycled/post-consumer waste (PCW) and processed-chlorine free (PCF) is a graphic designer’s best practice. Using local printers/vendors that are FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified and are powered by renewable energy, choosing to print with non-toxic vegetable or soy inks, asking questions to ensure project success, minimizing waste, and designing for reuse are means to practice sustainably as a graphic designer.

(More information and links to sustainable products are available at www.re-nourish.com).

1 Gregory Mock. “How Much Do We Consume?” Earth Trends. 2000. Oct. 2005. .
2 Daniel Imhoff. Paper or Plastic: Searching for Solutions to an Overpackaged World. (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books,) 2005. p. 100.
3 Ibid. p. 98.
4 Colin Berry. “Fiber Optimistic.” Print. July/August 2005.
5 Imhoff, p. 9.
6 Ibid. p. 19.
7 Ibid. p. 162.
8 Berry.