Lisa Holmes presented on the Portland AIGA chapter's sustainability initiative from May 2008 to April 2010. The initiative began after Lisa discovered AIGA's focus on sustainability at a 2008 leadership retreat. She took on the role of sustainability chair and developed a mission, goals, and objectives to promote sustainable practices among designers. Key events and accomplishments included forming a green team, hosting speaker events like Compostmodern PDX and SHIFT, developing online sustainability resources, and planning the 2010 Green Design Expo for Earth Day. The initiative successfully raised awareness of sustainability issues among the local design community.

1. Friday, June 18, 2010 1
Presentation giving by Lisa Holmes, AIGA Portland Sustainability Chair
at the 2010 Leadership Retreat in Chattanooga, Tennessee:
Thanks for inviting me to speak about the Portland chapterʼs Sustainability Initiative
This presentation follows a timeline: starting with the idea for forming the initiative in May 2008 -- until May 2010.

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2008 AIGA Leadership Retreat
discovered AIGA’s focus on sustainability
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May 2008: While attending the 2008 AIGA Leadership Retreat in Omaha, I discovered AIGAʼs strong focus on sustainability.

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Portland is one of the greenest cities in the world,and while the
Portland chapter had previously held several sustainability-related events,
there was agreement that we wanted to strengthen that focus.

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personal interest
what can designers do to make a difference?
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And personally, I wanted to know what impact designers
can have regarding sustainability. Plus...

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I wanted to help protect...

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the natural environment...

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that surrounds me.

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local chapter retreat
discussed adding a new position
began to develop a plan
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In June 2008 at the local chapter retreat, we discussed beginning the initiative,
but realized that we needed a plan so we would know what it would do.
We didnʼt have a current sustainability position so, I agreed take on the role of
Sustainability Chair in addition to my board duties as Secretary until our next election cycle.

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mission
Promote sustainable practices
within the design industry
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From July 2008 to December 2008, I worked on creating the plan,
which included a mission, goals and objectiives.
The mission: promote sustainable practices within the design community.

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goals
raise awareness
showcase involvement
provide information
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GOALS:
Raise awareness of the importance of sustainability in the design field.
Showcase sustainability involvement by the local design community.
Provide sustainability-related information and resources to the local design community.

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2009 objectives
create a green team
develop online resources
provide event support
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2009 OBJECTIVES
Create a “green team” with five or more committee members.
Develop a first-phase online resource of sustainability information.
Provide support for 2009 events.

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GREEN TEAM
In order to form the green team, we posted a call for volunteers via our communication channels.
18 people responded, and a year later, we have six very dedicated regular volunteers.
This has been one of the most important parts of our initiative.
We began holding monthly meetings in April 2009 and planning our first event:
which was Compostmodern PDX.

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April 16, 2009
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April 16, 2009, Compostmodern PDX

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At Compostmodern PDX, we showed two webcasts from the San Francisco event,
and had a main speaker: Brian Dougherty, who had just published his “Green Graphic Design” book.

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article: project highlight
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As part of our goal to showcase local projects, we published an article
focused on sustainable design that highlighted how a designer transformed
a binder of materials into a booklet using far less resources.
However, writing these articles has proven to be resource intensive
and would be a lot easier with a dedicated writer on the team, which we are working on.

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website resource listings
aigaportland.org/resources/sustainability
design process
events: planning and catering
exhibit graphics and signage
general info and inspiration
office practices
printing & paper options
promotional products
website hosting
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From June to October 2009, we worked on researching and creating resource listings.
We wanted to provide designers information on sustainable design products and services,
with a focus on local vendors.

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10 questions
for printers
and paper
distributors
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To help designers accurately compare local printers and paper distributorsʼ
sustainable design practices, we developed a questionnaire that we sent out
to vendors and then posted the responses on the chapter website.

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planning first event series
focus on sustainable design
reduce environmental impact
create dialogue among designers
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From June - October 2009, we also began planning our first
event series with a goal to create events with:
a focus on sustainable design that reduce environmental impact
and create dialogue among designers instead of talking to them about it.

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greening events
location via public transit
reduce waste generated
offer recycling and composting
locally sourced food and beverages
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In Portland, if youʼre going to talk about sustainability, you have to walk the talk --
or youʼll get called out on it -- so we wanted to make sure we the event was planned well with these things in mind:
• location should be accessible via public transit
• reduce amount of waste generated from serving ware to signage to promotional materials
• the event venues needed to offer recycling and composting
• food and beverages needed to be locally sourced
• no bottled water or big brand sodas
You should not only do these things, but tell people about it
so they know that sustainability is being addressed in event planning as well.

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November 6, 2009
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Our first event series was SHIFT, where...

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10 speakers give 5-minute presentations on “what does sustainable design mean to you?”
With over 80 attendees, we were very surprised at the number of people who were interested
in sustainability-focused events. We initially thought that 20-30 might attend, so we didnʼt have
seats for everyone but no one seemed to mind since the presentations were fun, low-key and inspiring.

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began planning Earth Day event
ReSource: Green Design Expo
trade show and program
keynote & featured speakers,
mini-seminars
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In December 2009, we began planning “ReSource: Green Design Expo”,
an Earth Day event that would be a mini trade show with speakers.
For the trade show component, we needed to decide what types of vendors we wanted;
they needed to offer sustainable design products or services, so we eliminated some
potential sponsors due to this requirement. It was important to us that if we were going
to call it a green design event, the vendors in the trade show had to represent this.

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January 13, 2010
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At the same time, we launched our second quarterly event series: the Green Salon Meetup.

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An open discussion format event held during the lunch hour
where designers get together to talk about sustainability.

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February 25, 2010
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On February 25, 2010, we held our 2nd SHIFT event.

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With over 140 attendees in a new auditorium space donated by Ziba Design.
We launched a “bring your own mug” promo: where if you brought a mug,
you got free beer, otherwise, you paid $5 for a compostable cup and the
money was donated to a non-profit. This was a huge hit with over 50% of the
people attending bringing mugs and comparing them, which became a point of discussion.

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March 24, 2010
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March 24, 2010: we held our 2nd Green Salon Meetup, the open discussion format event.
After the event, we asked for feedback. We decided to make the discussion more focused
and wanted to tie it in to SHIFT, so we decided to hold the event the week after SHIFT
and invite past presenters to lead the discussion.

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Earth Day: April 22, 2010
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On Earth Day, we held our Green Design Expo event...

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Which was a mini trade show with six speakers, including egg from Seattle.
We initially thought the trade show component would be larger, but instead
the program part of the event was bigger. Three top level sponsors were
able to speak for 15 minutes each: topic needed be about sustainable
design products or services and educational in nature.

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what’s next?
SHIFT & Green Salon Meetups
Green Design Expo
improve resources
stimulate online dialogue
reach out to local community
share tips for greener events
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WHATʼS NEXT?
We will continue to hold the quarterly events: SHIFT and Green Salon Meetups;
hold the Green Design Expo annually;
improve the resource listings on the chapter website;
start an online dialogue via a new website blog;
reach out to local community more: including businesses and the Cityʼs Department of Planning & Sustainability;
and weʼll share tips with all of our event planners on how to make events greener.

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tips on getting started
it’s not all or nothing
seek feedback and listen to what people want
build a team of passionate people
local board support
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Advice to other chapters: when starting a sustainability initiative,
itʼs not all or nothing; it doesnʼt have to be 100% green; you can start small.
The objective is to get people to think about the impact of their choices.
To be successful, it is important to seek feedback and listen to what people want.
Developing a team of passionate people and then letting them contribute the things
they have to offer has been invaluable to our success.
The initiative needs to be supported by the board.
While everyone in the Portland chapter felt this was something we wanted to do,
we needed to see a structured plan to understand what was do-able.

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Thanks!
follow us on Twitter:
@aigaportland
#aigapdxgreen
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Thanks for listening!