For this second of two interviews with designers from the annual Overlap event, I spoke with Mike LaVigne, creative director for Frog Design’s Shanghai studio. You can view the first interview, with “experience design” pioneer Nathan Shedroff, here.
Chhaya Bhanti: What’s the work you’re doing with Frog in Shanghai?
Mike Lavigne: The kind of work I do at Frog right now is helping clients come up with new products and product categories and to define what that road map looks like for them from now and into the future with varying degrees of vision and practicality built into that depending on what they are after as an organization. Since I have been in Shanghai, which has only been about nine months, I’ve spent time split between East/West Coast, Shanghai, Korea and Tokyo.
CB: Do you see a similar movement for green design in Asia as we now see in the U.S.?
ML: In a lot of ways Japan is much further ahead in sustainability. If you look at per capita metrics, one that came recently is that they are the most efficient in terms of electricity use of any industrialized country. But what clients are asking for in general in Asia is the next “it” product. They see it squarely as a profit move and if we can say that it will be profitable, they will move there. It really has to be taken at the strategic level of the company. The best leverage we have in sustainability is to do ethnographic style of research. If sustainability gives them an edge in the market place, they’re all for it, and if we can prove that it does, they’ll jump on it, and that’s how we have to enter into that conversation.
CB: When it comes to the decisive moment where you choose input materials that will define the sustainability of a product, the design mindset can really see it through and convince decision-makers about choosing alternatives. Do designers get to contribute to this process in the markets where you work?
ML: It’s such a new space to operate in, it goes everywhere from paper to pixels and everything in between. We are designing motherboards and circuit boards, we are specing fabrics and wood, and it’s everything in between that we have the opportunity to shape, and the variety of tools are so expansive. It’s hard to say.
In digital design you’re more concerned about toxicity and electricity, in product design it’s toxicity and waste. I’m the person at the front end trying to speak to the client and shape the conversation about sustainability. We did this with a major electronics producer in Korea. We did research for them in the European and the U.S. markets and there was a very clear voice of the consumer saying that, "I want to be able to hang onto this product for a long time and want to be able to upgrade it and then when I’m done with it I want to be able to deal with it in a responsible way," and so that became a part of the project. Now, it almost didn’t matter to the client though because what they wanted was the next big thing. Once they get the next big thing then they’ll move onto maybe the next level of materials and finish, etc.
Then they’ll still need to fall inside their set price for manufacturing. Does that mean that we don’t give the features that the customer has asked for in order to make the product more sustainable? You get cornered very quickly and that’s why I’m very much pushing upstream, and saying we have to shape business development, the relationship with the client, the industry and we have to get the government to actually influence policy and force companies to take action where they might not take otherwise.
The conversations that I’d like to have with the clients is to say, “Look, I realize that you are a major electronics manufacturer in Korea, but at some point shipping your product around the world, just to get it finished and assembled in a different country, doesn’t hold up so what’s your new way of doing business in the future?” When they start thinking about themselves that way, that’s when the designers have the truly big opportunities — you get to design companies and their products. That’s where I’m hoping the conversations will be shifting to be really about designing industries and companies to be more responsible. Until that happens we will only have to wait for these opportunities to come to us as designers.
CB: Many designers I’ve spoken to seem quite frustrated at not being able to incorporate sustainability in their work.
ML: It’s a tough situation for designers right now. There is a huge market shift coming but until a directive comes from executives all the way up at the top, the different business units are going to be driven by the same product pipeline, getting new products out and being successful with them. Unless it’s a mandate from the top that these products have to have some sort of a sustainability aspect, they won’t reorient a business for sustainability and that’s what we are at the mercy of as designers - we can’t make them do it. We can make the best case for doing it, and we do, and that is one of the missions we have internally, which is called the Designer’s Accord. I think that is as much as we can do, as consultants and designers, without getting a little bit nasty instead of telling them that it is the right thing to do.
CB: Could you tell me a bit about the Designer’s Accord?
ML: It has a list of agreements and you sign a petition but you’re also signing a contract which says that you will behave in a certain way for your business and it’s responsible enough towards our situation that it doesn’t overpromise what we can do, but it does ask you to step up – it’s about making sure that when you do have a client then you make sure that you introduce the topic of sustainability on every project. If the client doesn’t buy it, it’s their choice but at least you’ve introduced it. For me that’s what it’s about. It’s about asking designers to take a stand. But not sacrifice their businesses and say, “If I sign the Accord then I’m only going to work on sustainable project.”
CB: So how do you as a designer contribute to making sustainability a top down mandate at a company?
ML: I think designers or design companies need to directly engage with the government, is my opinion. We’re always at the mercy of our clients. Major corporations have entrenched positions and they are never going to ask for policy to be enforced on them. What we do see historically is that when policy is forced on the company they make the change.
If you look at Germany, producer responsibility requires German companies to take responsibility for the waste that was a result of their product. So if you sold batteries then you have to spend a lot of money to reclaim the batteries. You were responsible for that. But companies are never going to come up with that solution on their own. I think there need to be a lot of corporate voices pushing for that.
If the actual producers are not going to ask for that then I think designers who are in the corporate sphere have the ability to play a part in that voice. And I think effectively we have not. We haven’t. I think it’s one thing to have a PR message and another thing to go beyond what I think is our minimum responsibility, which is that at every turn reinforce the sustainability message with our clients.
So, I think the design community has a responsibility to pressure the government to change the policies. If we want those projects, then we have to encourage the market to change. We can do it through clients but we have to do it through a broader action.
CB: What practices do you think designers need to adopt to incorporate sustainability at an individual level?
ML: Sustainability is not just about products; products are only a small part of it but it has to be addressed at the strategic level. That’s my main area of focus. Product strategy, business unit strategy, corporate strategy and then policy, so for me everybody has the ability to respond to the issue of sustainability within our capabilities.
If I were speaking to designers I would be telling them that in order for them to have the biggest impact that they want to have, first they have to get the problem. Designers will be forever frustrated unless they can create that opening for themselves to be able to communicate to a client openly and as aggressively as they might like, and for that they have to get involved in the business development process.
And what I try to talk about in relation to sustainability, is to take the conversation away from responsibility because that’s very daunting, so instead of responsibility I talk about the ability to respond: Focus on your capabilities and do what you can from where you have control over the situation, take principled action.
If I try to analyze every product and every aspect of every product then I’ll never make any progress, so what I can do is to take principled action. One of mine is to eliminate as much waste as possible. And in that act until I just start practicing in some ways, I’m never going to learn and the problem will always seems too big and I will never have a way. My next one is to reduce as much energy as possible. Taking principled action is a way of focusing people’s efforts and the other one is about responding with people’s capabilities and that’s what gives people more of a framework to operate inside of instead of thinking that the problem is too bring for them to respond to.
CB: Sustainability is such an urgent need that there is a sense of panic about how quickly to turn things around but then there’s also the need for systems thinking to prevent negative feedback loops, which can really paralyze designers into inaction right?
ML: It really is about systems thinking but it can also create knots, so we have to effectively scope because systems thinking can really incorporate the universe. We have to act now in both small and large ways; you just have to look at what’s around you. If you want to change behavior then you have to start practicing, you just have to do half of what you think is realistic and then do half of that.
What we don’t want people to do is to set themselves up for failure by taking on too much, so they have to make a collective action with individual efforts. That’s what we have to do from bottom up but what we have to do from top down is policy and strategy. I believe you have to get more involved in things that you think are none of your business, getting involved in corporate strategy, business unit strategy and then policy change. I really think that’s where we need to take things next.
Chhaya Bhanti
is a brand strategy and sustainability consultant based in New York
City. She has worked in fine art, film, experiential design, 3D
visualization, brand strategy and advertising for over 10 years and is
most interested in design and media based solutions for sustainability.
Chhaya is deeply committed to socio-environmental issues in India and
is building a media literacy platform for Sanjhi, her NGO in Rajasthan.
She earned an M.A. in Communications and is now pursuing an MBA in
Sustainable Management.