Less Bullshit, More Action

Greenwashing won't solve climate change. Paying for your entire carbon footprint might.

By Peak Design

November 8^th, 2019

Peak Design lead designer Art Viger talks about sustainability, product design, and Climate Neutral, a nonprofit we helped to launch so that all companies can measure, reduce, and offset their carbon footprint. Support the launch of this non-profit on Kickstarter.

In design school it was a popular notion that design can save the world.

In other words, if you’re a good enough designer, you can somehow pick the right materials and processes to design a perfectly sustainable product.

With regards to things like chemical pollutants, that is somewhat true, but when it comes to climate change, it's just plain wrong. I’ve spent the last 5 years trying desperately to figure out how to build the most sustainable products that we practically can, while still maintaining a viable business model and making top quality products. That idea that a designer holds the keys to solving all the sustainability issues that come with making products has given me, and I'm sure many others, serious anxiety and guilt about the work we do.

Well, I've come to the conclusion that it's bullshit.

And more importantly it's unproductive, directly contributes to greenwashing, and ultimately allows companies to ignore where the real damage is done, and what is in their power to do about it.

The basic fact of the matter is that making products is one tiny piece of the pie with regards to the creation of Carbon Dioxide and other greenhouse gasses that lead to climate change. My team has fought tooth and nail for years to reduce the footprint of the products we make. We use recycled water bottles or post-industrial scrap to make most of our fabrics. We have moved to solution dying for most of our new fabric to reduce water and energy consumption significantly. We're transitioning into Bluesign certified materials.

I could go on and on, but this process of reduction and improvement is endless and has no finish line. We’ve already done the most impactful and practical changes to our products. Everything from here on is a difficult and complex slog and the benefits are fairly minor. That work will continue, but we realized the nature of the problem we were facing about a year ago. No matter what we do, we will still be generating a significant amount of carbon. The materials we use are actually just a drop in the bucket.

The mining/growing of raw materials, processing, shipping, electricity, manpower, assembly, packaging, etc., etc., is an amazingly complex process. Whether a product is made from recycled water bottles, organic hemp, mushroom leather or whatever the latest miracle material, the amount of carbon it takes to actually make something in our global economy is just bigger than that.

So rather than getting discouraged by this reality, we acted.

We paid for various carbon offset projects to offset the entire history of our company’s carbon production for scope 1,2, and 3 emissions. That goes all the way back to the energy it takes to pull the raw materials out of the ground. All of it. We didn't do that in place of building more sustainable products...we did it in addition. And we learned an interesting thing along the way. It was cheaper, easier, and more immediate than just about any other effort we've taken in pursuit of our sustainability goals. And it had by far the biggest and most measurable impact.

Peak Design's path to carbon neutrality informed the process by which businesses work with Climate Neutral to achieve carbon neutrality:

1) Measure your entire carbon footprint.

2) Undertake sustained, meaningful efforts to reduce it.

3) Offset the emissions you cannot immediately reduce.

4) Label products to share this news with your customers.

I was probably the most skeptical person out there about carbon offsets. But our founder [Peter Dering] is a smart dude and really went deep on this (see Peter's interview in Fast Company, read his op ed in the Outdoor Journal, read his Field Note, watch his panel discussion with Alex Honnold, etc). After hearing him out, and doing some reading of my own, I've fundamentally changed my view. In fact, I've changed the entire way I think about the part I play as a designer in mitigating climate change.

It's not that my role as a designer doesn't matter. It's that the solution is bigger than me.

I feel very strongly that if designers and brands own up to this reality, then we can stop trying to out-market each other with the latest green materials trends, and put our money where our mouth is with respect towards fighting climate change.

Please visit climateneutral.org/ks to support Climate Neutral. While you are there you can offset your entire personal carbon footprint, or sign your business up to be Climate Neutral Certified!