Last week, we finally selected a phrase that describes our Company; Inspring evolution through eco design. Knowing that this type of phrase has the ability to excite as well as turn-off, I thought I’d take a moment to help define what we mean.
Of course, any phrase like this needs to be rooted in a philosophy. We have one, people, product, planet, and we wrestled with how to convert the practices we utilize in operating our business, into a different statement that describes what that process means for the Brand and for the consumer.
Our
Brand lives in a world of products that we think up, produce and sell. Through
that process, we’ve created a certain set of “new” considerations as to what we
are willing to create and what we are willing to produce. That process is what
constitutes our whole people, product, planet philosophy. Adding this layer to
our already long design consideration of what is possible, reasonable,
realistic and sellable, makes the process somewhat more cumbersome. It also
becomes more exhilarating, knowing we’re working harder to create even more
deeply thoughtful products. This is the essence of eco design – design with an
awareness of the eco consequences, both social and environmental, of the
decisions inherent in the design.
We
see this as the evolution of the process of design. This process is most
vividly seen in LEED certifications of buildings. Take the concept of
landscaped roofs as seen on the California Academy of Sciences in
And
if the design is strong, and the execution is done well, that building will
serve to inspire people who visit or even see it. Not that they go home and
re-think their roof, that’s extreme. But, maybe they come away with a greater
appreciation of what is possible. Maybe a solar panel, maybe a rain barrel,
maybe they think differently about storm drain runoff. Who knows, but, the
point is, by stretching the boundaries of design, the building acts as a
longstanding symbol of changing norms.
Changing
norms are what evolution is all about. We do the same thing with our bags. Twenty
years ago, who would have thought we could grind up plastic, make it into
fabric and make great looking products? Twenty years ago, I bet there weren’t
even enough plastic bottles to matter. Now, the volume of bottles staggers the
mind, not just in the
Twenty
years ago, who would have said Google (what started as a search engine only)
would turn out to be part of an online evolution (and a verb, no less). They
accomplished that task through design, not just what we see, but, the code they
wrote to make it happen. GreenSmart is writing that same type of code, in the
work that we do, for bags. We’re applying different thought processes to how we
source and create, how we execute and manufacture and finally, how we tell our
story. We sincerely hope our work inspires others. It inspires us, and maybe
that’s all that matters.
