The two-day workshop entailed how we, as multimedia designers, can create more sustainable and accessible content and design for our guests and those around us.
During this workshop, we were able to have a visitor explain to us her experiences as a designer in implementing more environmental input in her work and how it can benefit different people.
Many new pieces of knowledge were gained during the first day of the workshop as our visitors covered topics such as environmental marketing, WSG (web sustainability guidelines), website accessibility, ESG (environmental, social, and governance), and greenwashing.
Global Footprint Quiz
This short, two-day project was mixed up between first-, second-, and third-semester multimedia design students. After the presentation from our visitor, we were to share our results from a global footprint calculator for homework. Upon our discussion, I had the highest number of earths if everyone lived like me. I think this is because I eat animal-based protein with every single meal and travel home to Japan quite often (11–12 hours), and I eat food or source ingredients or spices from abroad (Asia) to make my food, which therefore results in a higher global footprint due to the travel. An interesting point in our discussion was the fact that many of us would like to live a more sustainable life but simply cannot afford to. Take, for example, the price of regular potatoes and organic potatoes. Usually, regular potatoes are affordable compared to organic potatoes, and the only reason we aren’t purchasing organic potatoes is because of our economical situation as students.
However, a conflicting point in our discussion was the consumption of animal meat. My reason for eating so much animal meat is due to my culture, lifestyle, and preference. In my culture, it is normal to eat beef steak, fish, or other meats for breakfast or for every meal, and in terms of my lifestyle, I like to train and workout, and protein intake is important. I argued that, of course, you can get your protein from plants, but you need a high amount of volume to do so to reach a good protein intake, unlike animal protein, which is high quality, yummy, and overall just superior to plant protein. Another point I’d like to mention that the majority couldn’t really relate to is that my family lives abroad, my home is abroad, and I travel as much as I can to see them. During COVID, I couldn’t see them for 3 years, so I take the opportunity now to see them as much as possible.
The Small Project
Our small group has Task Number 1, in which we should redesign a website of our choice and make it more sustainable. Our specific task as first-semester students was to copyright. Prior to this workshop, we had neither an introduction to how to copyright nor any practice in doing so. The website that was also chosen had very limited text as it was a secondhand website with pictures and just titles of the product they were selling, their address, and the price, and there wasn’t much copywriting to do.
There wasn’t much I could contribute to this project, even when I asked. I decided to skip the next day of the workshop as I knew I wasn’t going to get anything out of it.
I understand that skipping out of group projects is a sign of disrespect, but as a person who really wanted to contribute to it but was given the responsibility of something I did not know how to do or wasn’t needed for, it was a risk I was willing to take. As a consequence of skipping out on this project, I had to write an essay about what an ESG report is and how I could implement it in my career as a multimedia designer.
From what I have learned from the visitor presentations and also from the essay I wrote on ESG reports, I believe that as multimedia designers, we have a bigger responsibility for sustainable web development than we like to think. From a company point of view, our skills prove to be useful in their allocation of time, money, and energy and can guide and measure their goals according to their values and their approach to sustainability.
Another takeaway was the mindset of ‘do we need it or do we want it?’ This mindset proposed by Greenwood focused on sustainability, efficiency, and the experience of web design for both the designer and the user.
Overall, I see myself implementing many of these values of sustainable web design in my own process portfolio by only adding things I need. There is also a fight over what to prioritise in terms of information, photos, or other things in the name of sustainability. As I said in my essay, the whole concept of ESG is amazing on paper but takes a lot of effort to perfect. It can allow me, as a MMD, to be conscious of my choices, both environmentally and in terms of how my users experience my web design.
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