Art by Nat Damm. Original photo by Brian Smale.

Valerie Casey

Founder, Designers Accord
Oakland, Calif.

Designer Valerie Casey, 37, wants to green not just her own projects but her entire industry. She started the Designers Accord—aka the “Kyoto Treaty of Design”—in 2007 to encourage the creative community to integrate the principles of sustainability into all design practice and to share knowledge with each other. So far, she estimates, more than 600 design firms, 30 corporations, and dozens of colleges and universities from more than 100 countries have ratified the accord. It all started in 2007 with a manifesto Casey wrote calling on the design community to “stimulate mass change” and “create a network in which every client is compelled to engage in a discussion of sustainability.” She now runs her own consultancy in San Francisco. Read about a talk Casey gave at South by Southwest.

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