In the past few years the green movement has grown beyond “the liberal tree huggers” and gained mass appeal in markets that used to be more concerned with price than if their toilet paper is 100% post consumer waste. If you take a stroll down any big box retail store or supermarket you are surrounded with packaging and products that are 100% PCW or Made from Recycled Material. It’s gone beyond a do-good effort and has officially become a marketing ploy.

But despite what we in the industry think, consumers are more intelligent than we give them credit for. They can smell an attempt to fake authenticity from a mile away and upwind. That’s why it’s become increasingly important that we take a holistic approach to sustainability, from marketing strategy to materials we use, from how we distribute the product to transitioning to simple things like scrubbing mailing lists. Our job is to fuse sustainability with profitability.

So how do we do that? How do we overcome the perception that going green comes with an increased budget? We do one simple thing, we come up with smarter solutions. It is our responsibility to think of better ways to get engage the audience with more efficiency and better return. Poorly designed materials become waste. Ineffective materials are tomorrow’s trash. Our job is to increase effectiveness, which increases value and if you can increase the value for the client you can often justify the cost.

Sustainable design isn’t just a marketing ploy to us. It’s the right thing to do socially, ecologically and financially. Sustainability does have it’s price tag. It’s going to cost innovative thinking, planning, being more efficient and trying out some new things. We’re up for the challenge, are you?