Design, Corporate Responsibility Design can reveal or conceal a product’s ecological impact. Designers, use your influence. “'Images are literally consumed as a form of nutrition,' wrote architect Mark Wigley in his 1999 essay Recycling Recycling. In revisiting ecological architecture theory of the 1970s, Wigley makes the case that the image of the house can have far greater cultural and ecological implications than the physicality of the thing itself. This can also apply to the image of a product: Take the universal recycling symbol, an icon so ubiquitous and familiar it’s practically inextricable from the good-for-the-planet practice that it communicates. In truth, the American recycling system is ineffectual; it has for half a century been used to justify ecosystem-collapsing mass production. The symbol, in this case, is far more powerful than the system it represents. "Like the recycling label, good faith certifications and 'ethical branding' enable producers to define standards for ecological production and fair labor practices, leaving consumers with little information with which to discern between vastly different products. Designers could make a difference in this respect: they could hold their clients accountable to transparent and ethical communication standards that empower consumers, not producers." Article: Packaging Designers Have A Responsibility to Push Clients Toward Ethical Transparency