How we navigate the complexities of sustainability
At Zalando, we are guided by Our Founding Mindset when we design experiences. One founding principle challenges us to keep it simple: “Complicated solutions are often a sign that we haven’t understood the problem yet.”
This sounds sensible. As a product designer working in the Sustainability team at Zalando (and as someone who is quite concerned about the future of our planet) there’s nothing I’d have wished for more than to offer our customers a very simple, straightforward solution to lessen the negative impact of our shopping behaviours.
The trouble with Sustainability is that it’s not just a complex design problem, but a rapidly evolving hairball of social, scientific and political issues. As designers, it is crucial to dig into the weeds of these complexities and aim to stay with the issues, instead of trying to treat them as a customer problem that can be smoothed over with a simple solution.
Digital Experience & Sustainability
But first: What does it actually mean to work in sustainability as a product designer at Zalando? I have no say in how the clothes we sell are manufactured, nor am I responsible for the assortment we carry or brands we collaborate with. My team, Digital Experience Sustainability, takes care of how customers interact with the topic of sustainability when they shop on Zalando. It’s our job to help customers identify that some products are more sustainable than others, explain why that is, and decide where in the customer journey this information is relevant and useful. A good example of this is the little green Sustainability flag that appears on products that meet one of over 20 sustainability criteria (these include fair trade, organic cotton, and recycled materials).
Fun side note: Maybe you’ve noticed that the flag reads “Sustainability” and not “Sustainable”. That’s because claiming that a product is sustainable implies that its production has left zero impact on the planet. No matter how you go about it, all products will inevitably leave some trace behind, so claiming that any product is “sustainable” is misleading and risks accusations of greenwashing.
Keep it simple, Sherlock
But to return to the main topic: How do you design a simple, delightful interface that breaks down the highly complex and frankly trying topic of sustainability for customers (who are ultimately just visiting the app to shop for a pair of jeans and are not interested in a lecture on environmentalism)?
I have to put my cards on the table: I don’t know.
One of the first and most powerful insights I gained from interviewing users on their attitudes towards sustainability was how emotionally draining the topic can be. Everyone knows this is something you should care about; the planet is burning, companies should be held accountable etc. etc.. So why can’t we just tell you which products are better than others and what to buy if you want to make ethical decisions?
The second you start unpacking this topic, it becomes more and more complicated.
The Material Environmental Scale
Let’s dive into an example. Along with the Sustainable Apparel Coalition and other fashion industry players, we have been trying to come up with a universally applicable way to rank products — a way to let you compare the environmental impact of clothes across product categories. Sort of like a traffic light or a grade system where all products would receive a score depending on how good or bad they are for the planet.
Working on a solution for this, we prototyped The Material Environmental Scale.
Why material? Looking at the water, energy, and chemicals needed for the production, processing and disposal of a garment is key to breaking down its carbon footprint. And this data is actually available on a lot of materials, and can be compared across products. Here’s one way this could look:
On the left you see a polyester dress that has been ranked as “Standard” and on the right a cotton dress that ranks “Better”. This seems easily decodable, however this type of scale will also require a legend to explain which factors have been taken into account, as shown below:
This gives us a little more information on what factors are important to look at, but one of the trickier elements of ranking materials also becomes evident: It’s very hard to compare environmental impact across materials. Each material is ranked in its own category. So while the organic cotton dress is doing really well compared to other cotton, when we look at the numbers it actually has a larger total negative impact than the polyester dress for water use (0.27m³ compared to polyester’s 0.042m³) and chemicals (23 units compared to polyester’s 19.6 units).
This goes against what most people imagine when they think about cotton, a natural material, versus polyester, a synthetic material! And these numbers only make up one part of the picture. Other factors have to be taken into account, such as the durability of an item (how well does it wash, how can it be repaired and cared for in the long run?) and the sourcing of the material (was it made using unethical farming practices or where working conditions were questionable?).
A dress is also a pretty straightforward item, but what if we were looking at something like a winter coat — should we include material breakdowns of all the materials in the item?
We are now very much at the core of the dilemma facing designers working in sustainability. You can have all the right intentions to break the topic down in a simple, understandable way, but the moment you start to dissect it you open a Pandora’s box of information and have infinite choices to make around how to guide a user without over-simplifying or putting out unsubstantiated claims. But isn’t it okay to simplify a little bit in the name of a greater purpose?
The quest against solutionism & easy fixes
We all know that sustainability is a very hot topic right now, and ethical consumerism seems to be the obvious answer to solve the environmental crisis we’re facing.
Technology writer, Evgeny Morozov, has criticised the tech industry’s inclination to treat every inconvenience as a business opportunity. He coined the term “solutionism” for this tendency of applying technologies to “fix” deeply complex social, cultural or political issues. Solutionism is not ideal; not only for the actual state of our environment, but because our customers are living in a world of dilemmas and difficult decisions. Trying to convince them that they can save the planet by just looking for a green Sustainability icon on a product page would constitute greenwashing and make us untrustworthy.
Whenever I’ve found myself in a dilemma between designing for simplicity and for sustainability, I’ve found great comfort and inspiration in this quote from design researcher Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard’s Critical-Feminist Design manifesto:
“Designing should not be a way out of trouble, but a way of staying with the trouble. In troubled times where social, cultural and political issues are inherently intertwined with technologies, design is not the solution but rather part of the problem. We should design to stay with the trouble of present issues and technologies’ inherent responsibilities rather than propose (yet another) solution that will end up as tomorrow’s problem.”
Engaging deeply with the issues surrounding your work can be difficult, but it is our responsibility as designers not to treat the complex problems consumerism and fast fashion have inflicted on our planet as mere business opportunities we can “fix” with technology. I truly hope and believe that by increasing our understanding and embracing the conflicts our services introduce, we will equip ourselves to imagine and design a better future.
