I was the event curator for the Design & Sustainability webinar series InspirON, a training webinar series, developed and curated by myself & ProtoLabs EMEA.

It is a 6 week long collection of ideas, provocations and tips/tools for Designers and Engineers wanting to deepen their engagement around Sustainability, whilst still making it commercially viable.

There are big names like IDEO, IBM, Ellen MacArthur Foundation and Futerra – but also startups who have gone B Corp, and we also have speakers doing immersive experiences, through to materials specialist and renowned experts in niche fields. It’s a chocolate box of talks and tips – pick what you need. The idea is not to ‘drown’ in information like if you’re at a conference, but rather have bitesize chunks alongside your day-to-day work.

The emphasis of each talk is 50% inspiration (think TED), and 50% pragmatism (getting it done against the odds).

Curator’s Notes

How I worked with each speaker to co-develop the talks to form a coherent body of content on Deisgn in Sustainability

The main insight of the ProtoLabs work, and indeed, for any company who makes products to be aware of - is that the Design Phase may be small financially speaking, but many of the decisions are 'locked in' (for better or worse) at this crucial stage. This is why the ‘influence’ of Design is estimated at 70% (in the 1970’s), and this figure at the time of writing is now estimated to be closer to 80%.

ProtoLabs and I had some great conversations about this ‘influence’ : ‘cost’ ratio and hence the critical role prototypes can play in influencing sustainable design best practices with its clients. Although ProtoLabs’ prototypes do not impact much in the way of LCA, they have the effect of either instilling bad materials/design/process choices, or they can inspire better ones.

“We Begin By Beginning…”

…was a maxim from one of my mentors at LEGO - and was about how one has to start, sometimes in spite of reasons not to, or what will likely fail first time. This feels certainly rang true for many employees of companies I had interviewed about the subject of Sustainability. Sometimes you just have to begin.

At the start of my journey as the curator of this webinar series, I asked myself: “What are the reasons/excuses I cannot make [Company X’s] work more environmentally sustainable?” It could be legal, financial, material, ethical, brand, and many more... I settled on 20 of these ‘blockers’.

From this list I scoured my networks to find a pairing of 20 inspirational experts, provocateurs and practitioners to ‘unblock’ these issues for companies. It seemed to be this was the most empathetic way to broach a delicate subject, without making anyone feel humiliated for their own internal reasons.

I briefed the select speakers to be ‘as inspirational as a TED talk’ - but then to assume people often feel unsure where to start when they get back to their day job, and that led to the conception of ‘Cheat Sheets’ for the talks - as a playbook to sustain the momentum, and even some tactical moves for when one inevitably comes up against resistance. 20mins of robust Q&A followed, on the ‘hard issues’.

The next section is a brief summary of some of the speakers and some key insights.

Cheat Sheet from Erica Purvis

Example of the ‘Cheat Sheet’ from Erica, which followed the Talk + Q&A, and gave more specific details as to how to ‘get started’ (if new to this) or ‘level-up’ (if more experiences), as well as giving a synopsis of her talk.

These were especially popular as they were about being frank about the setbacks, but pragmatic about how to overcome them - from people who had.

Series 1: Inspire to Change

Yewande Akinola

  • The Yellow [Lightening] Inspirational series was about inspiring those who had not considered Sustainability a commercial priority, or who had been intimidated to start for reasons of complexity or awareness. For some this was about aspiration, for others it was about risk-management, and some about brand repositioning.

Series 2: Technical Tools

  • For many of ProtoLabs’ technical clients, the ‘Tooling-up’ [Blue] series was a great way to help prime people for deeper training, whilst still providing some foundational starting points. With materials experts we got into some critical details, such as when and where to use recycled plastic or bioplastic or virgin - as is often the case outside of media hype, the real answers are more nuanced and many factors need to be weighed with care and consideration. Essentials like LCA were demystified and ‘basics’ like Packaging were explored in depth, with more creativity than one might imagine!

Series 3: Go Faster

  • When preaching to the converted - the question is then ‘how to go faster’, and so the Fast Fwd [Green] series was perfect for keen startups gunning for B-Corp status, but also multinational giants needing to ‘turn the oil tanker’ to greener futures. Some of the most contentious (and for me exciting) debates took place in this series as the Q&As showed may of the realities of consumerism and commerce which needed to have a ‘safe space’ to be resolved with tactics and deep insight.

Series 4: Thinking Big

  • Arguably as inspiration as the ‘Yellow’ section, but with the distinction of being more radical and future thinking. Psychological Hacks, Storytelling virtuosos, tech legends, and emergent tech startups all were in the mix of this climatic finish - a celebration to what was possible, but as always, with a steely eye on how to tackle the setbacks and hurdles ahead. A personal favourite, as you’d guess, but only possible because of the solid foundations of the other series before.

Roundtable Discussions

Having been a speaker at many events, as pleasing as it is to present for 20-45mins, often the most rewarding moments are in quality Q&A, or in a robust debate with peers, ideally with meaningful differences of opinion and lived experiences.

Despite being in the early days of Lockdown, thankfully everyone was still up for a Zoom call - and the ensuing debate! The personal challenge of chairing these carefully considered panels, and resulting fast-paced discussions with experts was a highlight for me, and judging by the flood of questions online, for the audience as well.

The speakers all commented on how enjoyable it was to ‘spar’ with others from around the world, many of whom they had not met, and so this was also a great extension to their own networks and capabilities. As glad as we all are that the pandemic is largely over, there was a silver lining to have such an international range of speakers, who I doubt would have been able to congregate in an event like this.

Although this started as a relative curiosity for ProtoLabs EMEA, it ended up blossoming into one of their largest campaigns for the year as a result of its engagement and relevance to an ever-increasing issue for many companies.

Roundtable 1: Achieving Sustainability and Who is Responsible?

Roundtable 2: Circular Economy and Design

Roundtable 3: The Hidden Environmental Cost of Gadgets fashion and digital platforms

Roundtable 4: what's holding you back from sustainable design at your company

Meet the Speakers

  • Tom Watt-Smith

  • Yewande Akinola

  • Simon Lockrey

  • Matt Sexton

  • Sioned Owen

  • Andrew Carr

  • Chris Lefteri

  • James Robottom

  • Joe Illes

  • Julia Beyersdorf

  • Andy Stanford Clark

    Andy Stanford Clark

  • Sophie Thomas

  • Dane Whitehurst

    Dane Whitehurst

  • Chris Grantham

  • Sofia Abid

  • Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino

  • Sunil Kadri

  • Niccola Baggio

    Niccola Baggio

  • Vannessa Goodship

    Vannessa Goodship

  • Erica Purvis

    Erica Purvis

  • Sam Coniff Allende

    Sam Coniff Allende