On Sustainability and Community
Art by @mattmcgillvray
A little while ago, I sat down for an interview with my friend, Simon Eisenbach, for his Common Cultures Podcast. Among many topics we discussed, I spoke about sustainability and community, and what I am calling the “500-year portfolio,” and after listening to the episode, I felt that I could perhaps expand on those thoughts a bit more in writing. I hope you’ll listen to the podcast and think of this as a companion piece.
What does sustainability mean to me?
In the interview, I described “sustainability” as an adjective; our relationship to a word is affected by our understanding of the definition of that word and our history of experiencing its use in our language. And for that reason, we must recontextualize the term “sustainability” so that we can understand it more completely and usefully. Too often, sustainability is thought of as a way of describing something—reusable bags are sustainable, electric vehicles are sustainable—but this conception of the term is too limited; we can’t truly fight for climate justice with such a narrow definition. Sustainability is more than a description; it’s a verb, it’s an action, something you do, it’s a word that demands we make a choice. “Yellow” is an adjective, “sustainability” is a lifestyle.
I’m not trying to be clever or play word games; ultimately, in categorizing sustainability as a verb rather than an adjective, what I am ultimately talking about is the difference between a means and an end. It isn’t how we describe our stuff, but how we use it that determines whether or not it is sustainable (or helpful, or safe, etc.); for example, ChevronTexaco—the oil company—built a 500-kilowatt solar facility called Solarmine to “power oil field operations” in California, according to this press release. Does this strike you as particularly “sustainable”? It isn’t; in fact, it is nothing more than a greenwashing attempt to obfuscate and distract from Chevron’s actual environmental harms. If we describe the panels themselves as sustainable, then the whole operation gains a veneer of sustainability, which is exactly what Chevron wants. When we define a thing based on what it does, we can see that those panels are part of a system of harm—in this case, a system that is linked to negative health outcomes, such as asthma and premature deaths, and distributes those outcomes disproportionately to those people who are low-income or non-white.
See what I mean? When we look at what we actively use the things that we might simply call “sustainable” for, we can determine whether they truly are, in fact, sustainable. And the reverse can be true as well: a Chevy Bolt (an electric car) could be used less sustainably than your typical Honda Civic or Ford F-150, especially if we happen to pay attention to the harms that extracting and mining the lithium required in the Bolt’s batteries can cause. Very little is truly as simple as a basic description like “sustainable” might make it seem. And this ties into the next question that Simon asked me, about “community.”
What does community mean to me?
Continuing with the conversation, Simon asked me how I’d define “community.” I told him that, to me, community means “the people you do life with.” And to give some additional clarifying context, I defined family as “the people you do life for.” These are my definitions alone, but I find them to be useful as they go beyond the simple definition and delineate our relationships to those around us—they connect us in ways that a more standard definition of community does not.
As is the theme, a community is, itself, more than a simple noun; it is the act of creating or doing community that sustains it. Any relationship requires input, and the community is no exception; being a bad citizen of a community will lead to negative outcomes, such as jail time or exile, while being a good citizen is likely to lead to positive outcomes, like trust or even political influence. Inputs and outputs; community is a lot like the environment in that sense, and it is that realization that led me to my next point.
Community and sustainability, as I said in the interview, are two sides of the same coin. In order to maintain civic institutions like towns or cities, we need to be aware of what we put into it: too much negativity (too little community) will lead to a collapse. Likewise, to maintain our environment, we need to pay attention to inputs and outputs (sustainability) as well. Both systems require balance, and it is that which is what makes sustainability and community so similar; however, each word also has another similarity—both words have a focus on time, specifically, the future. And it is to the future that we focus on the last of our terms from the interview.
What is the 500-year portfolio?
Just as inputs and outputs are integral parts of what really defines community and sustainability, they are a key part of each designer’s experience in the form of the portfolio. It is here where we measure the effort that we have put in to each project and show off all of the work that that effort produced. Inputs and outputs. When I first began designing, portfolios were tangible—I had a big black folder that I carried around with actual paper in it and a hard drive (and even some film slides that you could put in a projector). It was physical in a way that our portfolio websites today are not, which is both good and bad. My arms and back are happy to no longer lug a physical portfolio around, but on the other hand, I think that the “weightlessness” of the (increasingly digital-only) work allows us to imagine that there are no concrete effects of that work on the world around us. After all, how can a digital logo have a physical effect on something as big as the environment?
Design is communication, as I have said numerous times. The way that we communicate to other people effects buying habits, material consumption, conflicts, housing, and more. Most of us as designers will communicate to a group of people called consumers or users who will choose to buy—or refrain from buying—what we design, often based on the characteristics of that design and how that design is priced. So, what happens to that stuff that we design? Where does our contribution to a product end? Is it when we submit the invoice to a client? Is it when what we designed ends up on some store’s shelves, ready for purchase?
What is different about what I am calling the 500-year portfolio is that it turns even digital work into physical matter. It puts an ultimate perspective on the projects that we put our effort into completing. Lastly, the 500-year portfolio cannot be curated or winnowed down; it includes everything ever made. What is it? Our home. Earth. Specifically, the 500-year portfolio, as I am framing it, is, specifically, the sum total of all of those various landfills dotting the surface of our planet. Those landfills are the ultimate resting place for all of the stuff we create, successful or not. Victor Papanek said it best decades ago: “In an environment that is screwed up visually, physically, and chemically, the best and simplest thing that architects, industrial designers, planners, etc., could do for humanity would be to stop working entirely. In all pollution, designers are implicated at least partially.”¹ We all contribute to the 500-year portfolio, so we need to figure out how to do so responsibly and with care.
Sustainability, Community, and Climate Justice
So why should I go through and pad out this interview with (even) more words? Well, first of all, I don’t do speaking very well—writing is where I find I have more influence or power, but secondly because I need to use my platform to make clear that all of this Field Guide exists to help empower people like us to work toward climate justice and a proper understanding of these terms is necessary to furthering that work. As I said above, understanding sustainability as more than just a description of a thing is a crucial part of designing with justice in mind because we have to know in our bones that everything we design is a part of a system of use, misuse, abuse, and waste. What we create creates us. It shapes us, it takes up space, requires resources, and determines where we live, what we buy, and who gets rich (or becomes impoverished).
Always look to the inputs and outputs in the systems to which we contribute. Always look to learn more about the world that we affect. Always be aware of when a simple adjective needs to become a verb; our actions are louder than words. So much of what we call “green” today is being co-opted by big industries capitalizing on buzzwords, so let’s make those words actually mean something.
So, call-to-action time
Has this changed how you think about sustainability? Are there any other words or ideas that you think need to be recontextualized to help us all become better climate designers or activists? Take some time to assess your design practice and see if you can find anything where you can make sustainability a more active and involved part of your process.
Looking for ways to help the Field Guide and Climate Designers grow at the same time? Last year, the FGCD released an ebook and a portion of the proceeds go directly back to Climate Designers. Pick it up here: https://climatedesigners.gumroad.com/l/fieldguide
¹ Papanek, Victor, Design for the Real World, Preface to the First Edition, pg. xiii
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This entry was written by
Matt McGillvray
Matt is a designer and illustrator living near Portland, Maine, and has been working for more than a decade doing branding, illustration, web design, print design, social media posts, and even a little SEO. He’s the creator of the Field Guide to Climate Design (and author of the companion ebook) and is trying to establish an International Panel on Climate and Design.
When not designing he’s usually reading, writing, or running. His current big writing project is a book on design’s intersectionality with climate change via its relationship to waste. It will be called, What we design to throw away. He loves puns, his cats, Star Wars, and typography—possibly even in that order.