Jedlicka Design Ltd. helped First Team Sports achieve sustainability goals with recycled paperboard and minimal material use. The display panels of four boxes also fit together like a puzzle to create an on-shelf POP display.

Green is Dead: A Designer's Perspective

by Wendy Jedlicka

When the flurry of articles titled something like "Green is Dead" began popping up, it was pretty obvious they were out to create shock. As you read them though, you come to discover that green was not dead per se, but was finally maturing from a rabble of unshaven idealism to a real and actionable strategy for sustainable living.

If green as we knew it is dead, it's about time.

For the working designer committed to "green" in practice—sustainability—the specter of the radical green made selling the concepts of sustainability nearly impossible. Afraid to come off too "alternative," too "out there," and too far from the mainstream, clients would rather continue to produce products they KNEW were not sustainable simply for fear of losing market share.

It wasn't until companies like Aveda began speaking directly to the consumer, shifting focus (apolitically) to—nature is beauty, health is beautiful, you are naturally beautiful, why degrade that beauty with toxic products—that an entire industry changed. Today you're hard pressed to find personal care products that don't in some way work the nature angle—from ingredients, to packaging, to corporate outreach and giving.

Another great example is the whole foods sector, growing at 20% plus per year in a flat economy, while mainstream groceries struggle to hold 10-ish% numbers. In response, mainstream grocers have begun pulling their natural foods out of that dark dusty corner they used to shove them into, and offering them right next to their mainstream goods.

This is how it SHOULD be: Well-considered products, offered in a competitive environment, providing the consumer with healthful choices. In addition, the rigors of the mainstream competitive environment pushes the natural goods producer to make better products, ones that can deliver real value (meaning they actually work), and not rely on being purchased ONLY because they're green.

Today, the concepts of sustainability—not greenness—are being integrated into business models and product strategies across the board. Rather than being legislated into action, businesses (not limited to marginal players but BIG corporations) are actively looking at their total impact and opportunities (triple bottom line) as triggers for increased competitive advantage, creative levers, profitability, and of course, a tool to increase positive consumer perception and market share.

Green as we knew it NEEDED to die. It was tired. It worked hard to get us where we are now, and for that we are genuinely grateful. But it was also limiting the further integration of its actionable principles by wrapping itself in a bunch of other rhetoric mainstream producers were unwilling to accept.

If green IS dead, its legacy is not only living on, but thriving, and moving closer to the reality green had hoped for. Not though protests and calls for the immediate tear down of corporate fill-in-the-blank—offering no real solutions. But through thousands of actions taken every day, by regular people who recognize chances to make positive incremental changes—for a variety of reasons. Some ethical, some legislated, and some profit driven, but all with an eye on sustaining that positive advantage.

As with any maturing system, there will come a day when we won't have to talk about sustainability. Not because it's dead, but because it's simply just another part of good business.

Wendy Jedlicka, CPP is president of Jedlicka Design Ltd. (www.jedlicka.com), is chapter chair for o2-USA/Upper Midwest and liaison for the o2 Global Green Design Network (o2.org), and packaging and economics faculty for Minneapolis College of Art and Design's groundbreaking Sustainable Design Certificate Program (www.mcad.edu).