Greengaged is a not for profit organisation founded in 2008 by Sophie Thomas from thomas.matthews, Sarah Johnson from Re Design and Anne Chick from The Sustainable Design Research Centre at Kingston University.
Greengaged aims to advance the design industry’s capacity to respond positively to key environmental challenges such as climate change. This is done by offering thought leadership, creating spaces for dialogue, and opportunities for knowledge sharing - within the industry and beyond.
Sophie runs the communication design agency thomas.matthews, a trail-blazer in innovative sustainable design, which she co-founded in 1998. She is an ambassador for the cause through her lecturing and in her role as trustee to the Design Council and has co-founded the designer’s resource Three Trees Don’t Make A Forest.
Sarah runs the social enterprise [re]design an organisation that propagates sustainable actions through design. [re]design promote products and projects that are friendly to people and planet, and partner with a wide range of organisations to pioneer sustainable innovation.
Anne is Director of the Sustainable Design Research Centre and heads up the new MA on Design for Development at Kingston University. She has been an academic pioneer in sustainability for over fifteen years and her sustainable design research, knowledge transfer and educational work are acknowledged worldwide.
With an array of socially focused clients under her belt, Kate is an independent communications designer and consultant. In 2008, Kate set up and led the digital communications for greengaged and has since joined the team to assist its invaluable online presence. Kate is currently studying an MA in Design Writing Criticism at London College of Communication.
Posted by Bonnie Alter on Sep 23, 2009 at 10:59 AM | 0 comments
photo by: Chiara Terraneo
On Monday evening, Greengaged held its first co-ed Swishing night. Swishing is a sociable, friendly (usually) form of clothes swapping, with very specific rules. Organised by sustainable marketing communications company Futerra, everyone was asked to bring one piece of clean good clothing which could be swapped for someone else’s top, dress, shoes or tee-shirt.
Posted by Kate Andrews on Sep 23, 2009 at 10:29 AM | 0 comments
photo by: Travis Drever
On Monday 21st September, under the theme of "Design for Life: Barriers to Behaviour Change", our first guest curator Ed Gillespie ran the inaugural day of Greengaged 2009. Joined by an esteemed array of guest speakers incl. Roman Krznaric, Professor John Wood, Martin Hoelne, Alastair Fuad Luke, Jamie Burdett, Richard Hammond, Kerry Seager, Fiona Bennie, Duncan Law, Greta Corke, Toby Hammond, Victor Buchli and Ben Reynolds, the day set out to informally debate, discuss and explore the reasons why and how change happens and what prevents it. With some innovative communication technology from the Talkaoke media team (which Gillespie aptly defines as 'question time on acid'), the day was fast paced, engaging and provided exhaustive food for thought for all those in attendance.
Read Ed's great feature Exploring Behaviour Change Barriers all about his day, see the photographs, and hold your breath for the Talkaoke video footage, coming as soon as the 6 hours are edited!
Posted by Kate Andrews on Sep 22, 2009 at 04:47 PM | 0 comments
Is biomimicry at the core of your design process? Join Michael Pawlyn tomorrow at Greengaged to find out how it could be! All those in attendance tomorrow will be given the opportunity to win a place on a small group tour around The Economic Botany Collection at Kew Gardens, with Collections Manager Mark Nesbitt. Register here for the last few places at Biomimicry in Design: Learning from Nature.
Posted by Kate Andrews on Sep 22, 2009 at 03:09 PM | 0 comments
photo by: Travis Drever
Early yesterday morning, Greengaged 2009 at the Design Council, kicked off for London Design Festival! Following a warm welcome from Greengaged co-founder Sophie Thomas and David Kester, Chief Executive of the Design Council, the day was seamlessly handed over to the first of this weeks five guest curators, Ed Gillespie, Founding Director of sustainable communications agency Futerra.
Full coverage of "Design for Life: Barriers to Behaviour Change" - the inaugural day of Greengaged 2009, will be online here shortly, authored by Ed himself and from our guest authors Dan Lockton, and Bonnie Alter of Treehugger.com
Posted by Kate Andrews on Sep 22, 2009 at 11:03 AM | 0 comments
As Greengaged 2009 gets underway at the Design Council, I'm pleased to share our first Greengaged video. Featuring the voices of co-founders Sophie Thomas, Sarah Johnson and Anne Chick, and the Design Council's Chief Executive David Kester, this short film offers a brief insight into the aims and 2008 success of Greengaged.
There are still a few places left for events this current week, so do check the incredible line-up, via our events page, and register for the last few places!
Posted by Mark Beever on Sep 17, 2009 at 11:24 AM | 0 comments
On Friday 25th September, in association with Saint-Gobain and Aggregate Industries, greengaged is hosting The Materials Behind Sustainability event. We have created a survey to find out about your current materials choices, the results will feed into the Friday event. Please spend a few minutes letting us know about the materials you enjoy working with, and how you choose them. Take the Materials Survey here.
Posted by Kate Andrews on Sep 17, 2009 at 08:49 AM | 0 comments
A few months ago, Greengaged curator Anna Gerber and the team at Three Trees Don't Make a Forest were invited to visit London's “local” paper mill: Tullis Russell in Fife, Scotland. Joined by Sion Whellens of Calverts and Luke Nicholson of More Associates, Anna explains how 'the trip made a real impact on us all and got us thinking a lot about how industrial processes are instrumental to and in everything we design. Inspired by the trip, and as part of the Crafting Mass Production event for this year’s Greengaged at the Design Council, Gerber gathered a team of designers to spend the day at Workshop’s new letterpress studio in East London last week.
Posted by Mark Beever on Sep 16, 2009 at 11:24 AM | 0 comments
photo by: Kate Andrews
So, how can design save the world? Maybe it's about more than switching to groovy eco materials (bamboo laptop, anyone?).
Maybe we need to redesign the systems of society that produce unsustainability. A prime example is banking. It's a system based upon credit - spending today what we may earn tomorrow, creating problems of accelerated use of resources, waste, a lack of resilience (did you know that over two thirds of households in the UK are less than one month from bankruptcy?). And despite carbon neutral policies and Equator principles you could argue banking barely has a sustainable or responsible bone in its body. But as we explore banking we can start to find alternatives.
For live news, updates, new events, new posts and commentary you can follow us on Twitter @Greengaged. To get involved with discussions add #Greengaged to your tweets!
—posted by Sophie Thomas, Jul 27, 2010 at 02:04 PM
—posted by Laura Snell, Mar 26, 2010 at 04:52 PM
—posted by Mark Beever, Oct 17, 2009 at 05:33 PM
—posted by Kate Andrews, Oct 12, 2009 at 03:35 PM
—posted by Kate Andrews, Oct 04, 2009 at 05:10 PM
—posted by Kate Andrews, Sep 19, 2008 at 07:49 PM
—posted by Bonnie Alter, Sep 29, 2009 at 12:01 PM
—posted by Kate Andrews, Sep 23, 2009 at 03:20 PM
—posted by Sophie Thomas, Jun 22, 2009 at 07:13 PM
—posted by Kate Andrews, Sep 21, 2008 at 07:41 PM
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