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Over the past few days we’ve been researching sustainable packaging options for a CD we are designing for local indie band FUZU (Eskimo Grant is a member of the band). Hopefully the project will show not only that sustainable design is achievable on a shoe-string, but also that ethical and sustainable choices are sound foundations of any budget.
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It has been a while since I started my search for sustainable eco-friendly frames to frame some of the awards Digital Eskimo has been awarded. After a few well-intentioned conversations with people we still didn’t have a solution. Then I got in touch with Peter Cerneaz again. Peter: “For me this is something that I have been thinking about also. Framing is dreadful in using eco-unfriendly stuff.”
As we were a bit worried about the aesthetics, Peter made us a test frame first using offcuts of frames from other jobs. Peter pieced together the offcuts and joined the glass or Perspex using silicone.
Peter had never done that before so it was a nice experiment for him as well. The result was amazingly good! Although the white frame looked really smooth, we decided to spray them black as it would go better with the white paper of the award.
Last week, we bought a bright “Eskimo yellow” bicycle pump for the Igloo out of our wellbeing budget. It’s one of those things we should have done ages ago to save us a lot of irritation, sweat and hassle while trying to pump up our tires with a tiny little pump.
Besides the fact that the pump is pumping the air fast and efficient, our new yellow treasure has also got a little meter reading the pressure of the tire to make sure we are getting it exactly right. So now our bike-riding Eskimos are flying over the road enjoying our wellbeing investment 
The Wellbeing budget is a fixed amount per month and aims at contributing to our ‘wellbeing’ and ‘happiness’. You could also say that it contributes to the sustainability of the Eskimos and our work environment. Every week we agree upon the implementation of at least one new Wellbeing initiative, which varies from taking ‘action’, doing a (cultural and/or social) activity together or buying something for the igloo. We have been to the Sydney Film Festival, have organised a small soccer competition between design agencies and have bought more plants for the Igloo. Furthermore we have got our ongoing ‘wellbeing’ activities like yoga in the Igloo on Thursday morning and of course drinks on Friday afternoon.
Are You Getting Quechup Spammed? – social network that emails your entire list when you think you’re getting something else… Some high profile folks have been caught out already.
In keeping with our culture of sustainability, most weeks we try to institute a “sustainability initiative”. In a nutshell, we start doing something that contributes to sustainability within our office or in our community.
In the past we’ve introduced a “no takeaway cups” (as mentioned previously), installed a cigarette butt tray just outside the main door to our building (a favourite “smoker’s step”), and reducing our use of the lift (using the stairs instead).
This week we’re taking another step towards reducing waste – if any eskimo brings waste (e.g. take away containers, paper bags, etc.) into the igloo, it has to take a ride home with us. As we have a worm farm and Bakashi bin for food waste, this means that we should have very little non-organic waste at the end of the week.
It will be an interesting experiment for us – making visible our personal contribution to waste. I’ll post again next week to reflect on what we learn…