When design solutions create problems: a new logo for sustainability
Recently I saw a former course mate post on LinkedIn a new logo by Booking.com. It’s great looking logo and the intention behind it is noble: let’s make it easier to find sustainable options. This is exactly the goal I think needs to be aimed at. But I wonder if we’re all falling into a similar trap, and these logos amplify the problem they set out to solve.
Over the last few years I imagine a similar conversation has played out in hundreds of companies:
“Sustainability is a hot topic; it’s what consumers want. How do we draw attention to our sustainable options? Let’s brief the design team to come up with a logo.”
The designers do their job and a new logo surfaces. Most likely the brief, and the process, will follow design best practice: create something that is unique, and showcases sustainability in a way that visually aligns with the brand. It’s what designers do all day every day; they turn company strategy into simple and elegant solutions. Some examples of these sustainability logos:
These new logos join the 100s of other logos doing the same job, that themselves sit alongside 100s of different certifications (over 400 according to the International Institute for Sustainable Development) which also are aiming to point out to consumers which ones are ‘good’.
Is this not to be celebrated? More and more attention being drawn to sustainable options? Why might I suggest this could be more problem than solution?
Each of these logos requires recognition, cognition, and — crucially — trust. Some companies and certifications are incredibly rigorous, others are plain greenwashing, and the onus is on the consumer to decide which is which. Like I’ve done previously, I compare this to price and quality ratings. Price has one face — a numerical cost. Ratings are almost universally 5 stars. All products play by the same rules, and they are instantly understandable. With the proliferation of sustainability logos, are we solving the original problem? Are we helping make it easier for people to buy better? Or are our well intended individual efforts having a collective effect of making consumers have to work harder? Companies attempting to stand out from one another in sustainability may actually be undermining the bigger cause that has been set out to be achieved.
I believe indicating sustainable products is one place where the design process can and should diverge from the typical design dogma of solving for your own company or cause’s brief. Instead, could companies collaborate, perhaps with the governments too, to try to reach commonality rather than disparity? Fewer, more meaningful, logos, or ratings. Directly competing companies using the same means to judge and indicate sustainability. With a reduced surface area, the pressure increases. The road to get there is fraught, however. These conversations between companies rarely happen, and certainly not commonly between designers who are ultimately the creators of these assets. The certifications are all in competition with each other, each vying to be the truest and most recognised. Could there be a mechanism for designers across companies to create unified thinking, in recognition of sustainability’s greater purpose? How would it happen? It’s the ultimate design brief.
