Designers Accord: Design's 'Kyoto Treaty'

I recently had a chance to hear Valerie Casey of IDEO speak in NYC, which was great. Casey is the creator of the Designers Accord, a set of articulated principles that promote sustainable practice and knowledge sharing in the design industry.

To date more than 3,500 design companies have endorsed the “treaty” with the numbers growing at a rapid pace. This increasing engagement with sustainability, driven by the accord’s goals, is a wide reaching dialogue that has the potential to touch all sectors of the design world including interaction, digital, industrial, graphic, communications, advertising, architecture - and those involved in the design industry, including engineers, business consultants, researchers, writers, marketers, and educational institutions.

Jessie Scanlon has a great article over at BusinessWeek that takes a look at how this idea evolved, where it is at present and what’s expected in the future in A New Model for Green Design. Also find more at DesignersAccord.org.