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SustainableUX #7: gov.uk sustainability manual; environment-centered design; links of optimism
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SustainableUX #7: gov.uk sustainability manual; environment-centered design; links of optimism

James Christie
Apr 21
2
Share this post
SustainableUX #7: gov.uk sustainability manual; environment-centered design; links of optimism
sustainableux.substack.com

In this issue:

Catching up with our past speakers - IDEO goes green(er) - Gov.uk approach to sustainable digital - Tech firms will save the day?

Twitter | LinkedIn Group | Slack (email me back to request Slack access).


It’s been quiet here for a while, hasn’t it? Pandemic + work-related burnout = neglected SustainableUX.

Fortunately, I found a way to re-energize. I started attending nearby climate meetups (well, nearby but on Zoom) and started making connections. I found a way to contribute: my local climate groups (there are around 30 of them) are not the most tech-savvy - so I went about setting up newsletters, shared calendars, and other platform-related stuff to help them coordinate and extend their efforts. Plus, attended plenty of beach cleanups and eco-fairs to get me outside.

I’ll save the details for a future post, but perhaps this idea will click for you too. For me digital sustainability can feel pretty abstract, whereas working with your neighbors on shared problems and solutions gave my motivation a big boost.

On with the newsletter!



Techbros suck (the CO2 out of the atmosphere (maybe))

News that Stripe/Frontier are getting into carbon capture was met with skepticism (at best) in the bits of climate twitter I follow. And it’s right to be skeptical of tech-centered solutions that promise to somehow to “undo climate change”. There have been many overhyped solutions that attracted big money but never delivered. The bigger bang for buck is in preventing emissions in the first place anyway, right?

I had my preconceptions shaken by @tommoyerUT, who argues that the sums might actually make sense. Free heat = very cheap CO2 removal, on a par with replacing fossils with renewables. It’s an interesting thread if you want to get into the physics and economics of the thing.

Twitter avatar for @TomMoyerUTTom Moyer 🇺🇸 @TomMoyerUT
Carbon dioxide removal has been in the news lately with the $925M announcement from Stripe and Frontier. There's been lots of discussion about the energy requirements for direct air capture, and thermodynamic limits. So I decided to check the numbers. A 🧵

April 15th 2022

29 Retweets172 Likes

For now, I’m filing this under “reasons to be hopeful” rather than “cynical greenwash corporate ploy”.


Catching up with SustainableUX folks

Let’s find out what our previous speakers up to, shall we?

Jordyn Bonds

Jordyn spoke at SustainableUX 2019 on Energy Efficiency in P2P.

JC: How does climate thinking factor into your current role?

JB: We are building hollarhype with social movements in mind, and we most immediately see a use case for climate activists who need a way to support each other on those days when things feel most hopeless.

Read the full article.

Tim Frick

Tim is one of the OGs for this whole sustainable digital thing. He spoke in 2016 and 2017. And he’s involved in, well, everything. Three examples:

  • Corporate Digital Responsibility (CDR)

  • Updating Ecograder (the first useful carbon estimator for sites)

  • Evolving the B Corp model to be ever-more sustainable.

Read the full article. And check out his excellent book, Designing for Sustainability.


Yes Please, Minister

Gov.Uk team making strides in standardizing an approach to digital sustainability:

Twitter avatar for @_RhiannonLawsonRhiannon Lawson @_RhiannonLawson
Today we have published a requirement to make government #technology #sustainable. This is fabulous work which supports the government's sustainability and carbon net zero aims. @COP26 #CDDO #carbonneutral @DefraGovUK @GDSTeam #COP26 @cabinetofficeuk
Make your technology sustainableIncrease sustainability throughout the lifecycle of your technology.gov.uk

November 10th 2021

40 Retweets96 Likes

Take a look at gov.uk’s specific guidelines on cloud use, duplicate data, eliminating PDFs (yay), measurement, and how to link project goals to sustainable development goals. It’s a lot and it’s great.


IDEO aims for Zero

IDEO bringing IDEO process to their carbon footprint.

“We quickly realized the complexity of the challenge. There are hundreds of people across IDEO, and each of them make purchases on behalf of the firm in the running of our business — from video conference subscriptions to user research project expenses. With at least 80–90% of any organization’s carbon footprint coming from Scope 3 emissions (including upstream suppliers), calculating one’s carbon footprint is a significantly distributed issue.”

IDEOS footprint fell from an estimated 14,000 tons to under 5,000 between 2019 and 2021
IDEOs estimated footprint 2019-2021


Of course, lots of agencies made big reductions in the last 2 years…no one was flying, and flights are surely the main CO2 culprit for agencies like these. Still, good work!

Environment-Centered Design

Monika Sznel with The time for Environment-Centered Design has come

“it’s the next iteration of the well-known human-centered design framework and is better fitted for the environmental, social and technological context in which we live.”

Human centered design (with people on top) vs Enviroment-centered design, with people in an interdependent web.
Environment-centered design

Aside: first thing I thought of was Troy McClure’s Food Chain bit, with the arrows taken out.


Get a climate-adjacent job

A recent highlight from our jobs board on Slack, for ThredUp:

Ahoy folks! I’m looking for a Sr. Java/Kotlin Engineer to join our product engineering team at thredUP. We have 4 day work weeks (the dream is real) ), and lots of fun building scalable services for sustainable fashion

Link to job

There might not be many Kotlin devs subscribing to this newsletter, but I’m including it anyway because I’m so happy to see the 4-day week become a thing.


Something cool -

ClimateConnect

Screenshot of the ClimateConnect tool showing local projects

A new platform for linking climate projects to volunteers, and more besides. Mostly in Germany so far. I recently had a chat with one of the founders and will be featuring this platform in a future issue.


Events (all remote unless noted)

April 21st: CAT Coffee / Green Web Dev

April 22nd: Earth Day Panel Talk | Redefining Culture

Exploring what businesses and communities can do to change our mindset towards sustainable living

April 26th: How to Get A Job in climate

June: Green Software Summit


More things

  • Tune in, twig out. Tree FM.

  • A good book from A Book Apart: Sustainable web design.


Elsewhere

Twitter | LinkedIn Group | Slack (email me back to request Slack access).

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Thanks for reading!

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