The Design Council is to axe its sustainability project leader post.
The decision came as a surprise to the design community, following assertions that sustainability is ‘the defining issue’ for the organisation at its ‘Wake up to sustainability’ event, held at the London Design Festival only last month.
Design Council chief executive David Kester (pictured) declined to comment on the decision to terminate the role, but said that sustainability would underpin all of the organisation’s programmes going forward. Although sustainability will not have a dedicated programme, Kester says, it will be a common element to its programmes for business, skills and public outreach.
I believe this is a significant event. Sustainability should be intrinsic in all aspects of a business, and nominating a champion, and/or treating it as a special project based role sends the wrong message to staff, who then believe that sustainability is someone else’s responsibility, when in fact we should all consider sustainability as part of our management responsibility.
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