Greening AIGA

 “Social responsibility has economic and environmental dimensions. This broad perspective is often described as a commitment to “sustainability,” which has become a term-of-art for advancing economic activity while ensuring that we can sustain our activities in a sometimes fragile world without harming the future’s potential. Showing respect for these consequences is no longer a fringe issue. Businesses are driving this agenda, and designers must learn to be trusted advisors on responsible communication techniques to serve clients effectively…It is critical to the designer, as a trusted advisor to business on communication and positioning issues and as a crafter of design artifacts, that the profession also make these issues mainstream in its thinking.”
—Richard Grefé, executive director, AIGA

Upon hearing a presentation on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), a voluntary movement championed by a number of the largest corporations in the world, AIGA determined it would invest the resources to accomplish several goals. GRI seeks to transform annual corporate reporting from financial reporting to reporting on the “triple bottom line,” a measure of corporate performance that includes economic, social and environmental impacts. Today, sustainability is linked with sustaining the relevance of the institution and the profession it represents, not just the environment. AIGA must not simply advocate others’ positions on these issues. AIGA must demonstrate its own commitment—become a leader, a model and a moral force by accomplishing the following goals:

• To improve its own administrative practices to minimize adverse environmental and energy impacts
• To set criteria for the work of its consultants and contractors to set an example of how adverse environmental and energy impacts can be minimized within financial and quality constraints
• To lead the profession in its own education and understanding of sustainability issues

AIGA, the professional association for design, is nearly a century old and has evolved from a club of printers and publishers in the early part of the 20th century to the largest professional association of communication designers in the world, adapting to the dynamics that have affected the profession over the years. Today, it represents the full range of communication designers and those who are involved in designing messages, brands and strategies. Among its members are the most prominent designers working in print. Clearly, our constituency is an important one in leading corporate practices concerning use of print and paper.

Click on the links below for a report on institutional measures taken and planned.

• Changing Practices
• Achieving Carbon Neutrality
• Printing
• GRI Reporting

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