The Awakening — Vol #2 — The Sustainable UX Newsletter
“Humanity is on thin ice — and that ice is melting fast,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at Monday’s release of the latest synthesis report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “Our world needs climate action on all fronts — everything, everywhere, all at once.” — UN Climate Panel 20 Mar, 2023
In the global north, spring has begun. The earth, animals, and everything in between is awakening from it’s cold winter slumber. This is a time of renewal and hope for warmer days with longer bouts of sunlight. We have a sort of climate awareness spring emerging throughout our design and technology communities creating a universal awakening to the threats of climate change. And yet, with any spring, there is hope. Let’s use this awakening to inspire each other towards taking action where we can because it matters more now, than ever before.
February/March 2023 Global Highlights
- 🎧 SUX Podcast Episode 03: Kickoff 2023 — An intermezzo episode signaling more to come! #4 is about to launch with special guest, Joe Macleod discussing the sustainability impact of ending customer relationships.
- 📚 Pearson Education unveils vision for future-proofed design education to include planetary boundaries and sustainability in the core of the curriculum.
- 📍Sandy Dahnert of Green the Web talks through Sustainability infused User Journey maps with this podcast and article complete with figma and miro templates to put into practice!
- 💚 Climate Designers published their new Resource Guide to help you kickstart your sustainability education and design journey.
- 🌊 Green I/O speaks about the Data Tsunami with beloved Gerry McGovern and Katie Singer
- 👣 Niina Mikolaniemi discusses Four Ways to reduce the carbon footprint of digital solutions
- 🛒 Akos Csertan talks about the harm greenwashing does in his article on Atlas, Rise! — Can we please leave the consumer alone now?
- 📕 Michael Anderson publishes Sustainable Web Design — In 20 Lessons a book for the web designer and the intermediate website owner to teach you what sustainable web design is and give you valuable tools you can use to make your website more sustainable.
- 🪸 Dr. Olivier Costaftis outlines several additional design practices and methods that go beyond human centered design towards more sustainable outcomes. You can also explore his lightweight yet engaging website.
- 💬 Paola Miani outlines a robust call to action and guide for advocating for sustainability within your design process and several methods for incorporating sustainability into your daily work
- 🌏 UN IPCC publishes it’s 6th assessment — Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. The BBC outlines 5 things they learned from this report. Yes, it’s urgent, and there is still hope.
“I think our climate system, but also our social systems and our ecosystems, all show us that it’s bloody urgent, so that we can still change the world to make it a better place for all of us.” — Dr Friederike Otto.
- 🌳 Damien Lutz publishes his experimentation with non-human personas with an invitation to share your experience as well
- 💬 Paola Miani provides some talking points and simple steps to incorporate sustainability into your daily work.
- 🎧 Thorsten Jonas was featured on the Future of UX — Discussing Sustainable Design
- 🗑️ Digital Cleanup Day happened on March 18th, but you can still take part! Gaël Duez discusses more on Green I/O with Ingrid Nielsen and Olivier Vergeynyst.
- 🪑 In the world of industrial and physical product design, there has also been some work around Designing with the Planet as a Stakeholder from Pearson Lloyd.
- 🌐 New Chrome feature to save battery and make browsing smoother.
- 👀 Vitaly Friedman posted a BIG list of Sustainability Resources including the IBM Designing Sustainability Toolkit and Design Group Italia’s Figma Kit for Digital Designers
- 🧠 Katie Singer published an insightful article on Questioning Our Digital Footprint
2023 Upcoming Events
🗓️ March
- 23rd & 24th March — online and in person @ Copenhagen
⚡️SUX at UX Copenhagen - 23rd March 1PM EST — online CAT Branch reading group #4 Reparing Our Relationship with Technology
🗓️ April — ??
- 3rd April @ 9am EST — CAT online Watch Party: Why carbon offsets are worse than you think
- 10th April 6pm CET — Online Workshop by Digital Collage, a workshop similar to ClimateFresk aiming to raise awareness and train participants on the environmental issues of digital technologies
- Saturday 6th May — Munich
⚡️SUX at Design Drives UX & Innovation Conference - 13th & 14th June — Aarhus
⚡️SUX at UX Connect 23
Get Involved
🌏🌎🌍 Current Community Count
— 1,308 Slack members 👉join
— 2,873 LinkedIn followers 👉follow
We are continuing to build the SUX Playbook, explore the toolkit. You can help! If interested, learn more here.
🙏 Thank you for tuning in! We urge you stay optimistic because together, incremental change can become monumental.
We’ll be back next month. If you have something published or an upcoming event you would like featured, please reach out to Poppe Guthrie on the ⚡️ SUX slack.
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