Designers are under constant pressure on a day-to-day basis to meet the client's demands for innovative product development. Consequently, when dealing with issues of sustainability, we look to solutions that we can implement quickly, and within the frameworks and parameters of our existing practice and business models. Often, we seek a sustainability checklist that guides us on what to do and how to proceed. But a checklist can lead us straight to a solution, by-passing the process of diagnosis, and appropriate actions for a variety of contexts.

Sustainability is not so much an end goal as a process of constant re-adjustment – to embracing ecological and social touchstones as the lens through which everything else is viewed. David Orr and others call this the ‘great work’. It demands rigorous questioning, exploration, application and adjustment…of our practice, our businesses…our culture…and ourselves.

These are ‘living’ principles and as such they suggest a starting place. They will continue to grow and evolve through their application to actual practice, and as our understanding of what sustainability entails deepens and broadens. Your feedback on these principles is not only welcomed, it is critical to keeping these principles vital and relevant. Use them, test them in the field, in various circumstances, countries and cultures; adjust them for yourselves, and keep us informed about their effectiveness and limitations.

We look forward to your contributions.

The Living Principles are incredibly useful for designers as they make sustainability endemic to their work. Right now, the battle is getting people to understand that cultural vitality is as central to sustainability as environmental protection. The Living Principles do an elegant job of clarifying these concepts and making them accessible.

The Living Principles for Design is a well rounded, highly useable roadmap. We need this. This call for much needed change challenges us to be bold, to be unique, to innovate and to develop new ways of communicating.