Interactions - January/February 2019

@INTERACTIONSMAG 66 INTERACTIONS JANUARY–FEBRUARY2019 FORUM SUSTAINABILITY IN (INTER)ACTION

B THE CHANGE: ORGANIZATION DESIGN

For many agencies and organizations in general, successfully balancing purpose and profit will depend upon the intentionality with which they design their organizations. My 20-plus-year- old digital agency Mightybytes (www. mightybytes.com) exists with purpose in its DNA. We help mission-driven organizations create greater impact, and we operate our business by a triple-bottom-line philosophy that weighs our need to generate profit alongside the needs of human beings and the planet.

As a Certified B Corp, Mightybytes uses the B Impact Assessment (Figure 2) to help us reach the highest standards of social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability [ 4]. This requires an ongoing balancing act between purpose and profit, which means we must embrace continuous improvement.

Sometimes we fall short of our goals, and sometimes we get great results, but we’re always looking to improve.

The B Impact Assessment also helps us think differently about supply chains and how we procure the resources necessary to run our company, including renewable energy sources for the websites and digital products we build. After initially certifying as a B Corp in 2011, we turned those thoughts outward and created Ecograder ( ecograder.com), an educational tool designed to help users better understand the environmental impact of their website, and a microsite about sustainable Web design ( sustainablewebdesign.org).

We found that the assessment gave
us a flexible roadmap for building a
better business. We use its principles,
which are closely aligned with the UN’s
SDGs, to guide our decision making on
everything from the clients we pursue
to how we generate profit and support
ongoing philanthropic efforts. Then we
do what our resources can support over
time. For instance:
• By paying our employees a living
wage and offering the best benefits that
we can afford, Mightybytes addresses
SDGs 1 (no poverty), 2 (zero hunger), 3

(good health and well-being), 8 (decent work and economic growth), 10 (reduced inequalities), and 11 (sustainable cities and communities).

a high level, Designing for Sustainability promoted the following tactics as greener ways to build digital products and services:

• Content findability. Ensure content can be found quickly and easily on websites and through search engines.

Follow SEO best practices, add search-on-site, and so on.

• Usability. Enable users to complete tasks quickly and encourage them to make more sustainable choices.

Reduce form fields, highlight more environmentally friendly shipping options, remove proprietary technologies and other potential barriers to good UX.

• Performance optimization. Build
faster websites. Speed up asset
downloads and improve content
accessibility.

• Green hosting. Use a Web host powered by 100 percent renewable energy.

This framework was a good start, but like the net-zero thinking mentioned above, it focused on doing less damage.

I’d like to propose here that in addition to the practices above, we include the UN’s SDGs and embrace a net positive approach to our projects. This will require a shift in how we design and build digital products, assigning design teams with more responsibility over a product’s final impact on society. The collective results could be significant.