One year with the Design Declares movement

This month, we’re celebrating one year since we joined the Design Declares movement to tackle climate change!

Launched in September 2022, we joined Design Declares last November as part of our commitment to measure our carbon footprint and engage with our customers to discuss climate change.

Design Declares was launched to encourage graphic designers to declare a climate emergency and commit to harnessing the tools of our industry to reimagine, rebuild and heal our world.

About Design Declares

The campaign was launched to help UK designers across the fields of digital, industrial, communication and service tackle their environmental footprint.

It also helps to position designers alongside ‘policymakers, campaigners and scientists’ in the climate action movement using the eight “acts of emergency” as a starting point:

1. Sound the alarm – Acknowledge and raise awareness of the climate and ecological crisis – including its roots in systems of oppression – in our organisations and our practice.
2. Start the journey – Invest in educating ourselves and our teams on methods of sustainable and regenerative design and show leadership by making a measurable change to our practice.
3. Bring clients with us – Meaningfully consider environmental and social impacts as part of every pitch, proposal and production process. Not every design output will be carbon-neutral or fully climate-friendly, but every project is an opportunity to make real progress.
4. Measure what we make – Measure the environmental and social impact of our work and design projects and hold ourselves to account for what we find out.
5. Redefine ‘good’ – Encourage, recognise and reward sustainable and regenerative design excellence in our industry through media and awards.
6. Educate, accelerate – Build and foster intra- and cross-discipline knowledge networks to share tools, resources and best practices to accelerate progress in our industry.
7. Design for justice – Create with and for the people who are disproportionately affected both by climate change and by the transition to a lower-carbon world.
8. Amplify voices for change – Enable systemic change by working alongside policymakers, campaigners, ecologists, scientists, activists and others to strengthen local and national movements for change.

Our green impact

While it’s true that print done badly can have a negative impact on the environment, that is not the case here at Visual Print and Design

In fact, across the print industry, eco-friendly and sustainable printing has become the default, making it much easier for businesses to go green.

We take our wider impact on the environment seriously and know it is our responsibility to reduce it. As well as being part of the Design Declares movement we also:

• Measure and reduce our CO2 outputs and those of our clients
• Offer an unrivalled selection of recycled and sustainable paper stock
• Do not use paper that comes from rainforests
• Offer eco-friendly promotional merchandise
• Are part of the Carbon Capture Programme

Thanks to being part of the Carbon Capture Programme, we offset a whopping 4.58 tonnes of CO2 each year and help to plant native woodland in the UK.

So, when you place an order with us you can rest assured that we are committed to helping you reduce your carbon footprint as well as our own.

We invite others within our industry to join us in declaring an emergency and start to take urgent action by signing up to the Design Declares movement.