Olka Fiszbak-Biernat — Lead Product Designer at HTD
Junior - Mid - Senior... and then what? What are the possible career development directions for a Senior Product Designer?
UX Product Design
🇵🇱 Polish
UX Product Design
Designing for climate action
About
How can designers drive positive climate actions in the digital products they are designing? How do you design for sustainable actions and empower users to take positive action?
The talk will share learnings of designing many digital solutions to empower people for more positive climate actions with the climate tech startup Footprint and many insights from user research.
You will learn design principles and methods to leverage interactions into the creation process of your digital products - even if the products themselves are not primarily focused on sustainability.In addition, Sebastian will share learnings and stories from many global designers leaders collected through the podcast Designdrives.org and experiences working on sustainability solutions at BMW Group to make the design principles and methods tangible.
- The role of design in the context of sustainability, and which areas of the product development and innovation phase designers can get involved and make positive contributions to the final outcome.
- Methods and tools for designers to influence processes and general design approaches to come to different results. This will be visualized with different examples and insights from interviewing over 60 global design leaders.
- Practical insights and ideas on how to make a brand experience more sustainable and nudge user behavior and habits. Learnings from over 100 user research interviews from the climate tech startup Footprint.
Watch the full talk
Watch this WaysConf session, then continue with related talks or explore the current programme.
From the recording
Talk in brief
Sebastian Gier presents climate action as a product-design responsibility that extends beyond the direct energy footprint of screens and devices. Digital services influence mobility, consumption, work, and other higher-emission behavior, giving designers leverage over wider systems. The talk shows how to build shared ownership across teams, translate sustainability into business risk and customer value, use behavior visions and prototypes to make lower-carbon futures concrete, and add understandable impact feedback to product journeys. It closes with practical guidance on simpler flows, responsible content, reusable systems, efficient assets, green hosting, performance budgets, selective tracking, transparent claims, and measurable reduction.
Key takeaways
- 01
Treat digital design as a system-wide climate lever
Technology may be a minority of a person's direct footprint, but digital products shape choices across mobility, shopping, media, and everyday consumption.
Watch from 3:25 - 02
Create shared ownership across organizational boundaries
Sustainability work depends on engineers, product leaders, suppliers, and partners, so designers should facilitate participation instead of owning the solution alone.
Watch from 9:52 - 03
Translate sustainability into stakeholder priorities
Business adoption becomes easier when climate proposals connect to risk, customer expectations, employee attraction, viability, and the goals other teams already carry.
Watch from 13:51 - 04
Prototype the behavior and future you want to create
A visible behavior goal and a concrete prototype give teams a shared North Star, expose different assumptions, and build confidence before full implementation.
Watch from 21:59 - 05
Combine useful impact feedback with efficient delivery
Products can make carbon consequences relatable while reducing flows, page weight, unnecessary tracking, repeated content, and infrastructure energy demand.
Watch from 30:34
Read edited transcript highlights
These concise notes were edited from automatic captions and checked against the talk structure. They are not a verbatim transcript.
Digital products influence emissions far beyond the screen
The direct footprint of phones, televisions, and computers is only one part of the design question. Digital services shape which products people discover, how they travel, what they consume, and which behaviors feel convenient or normal. Designers therefore have leverage across a broader system and should evaluate the downstream choices an experience encourages, not only the energy used by its interface.
Watch from 3:25Climate work advances when ownership is deliberately shared
A sustainability initiative rarely belongs to one function. Engineers, product leaders, suppliers, and business teams hold different dependencies and priorities. Designers can bring these participants into education, ideation, and quantification, then step back enough for others to shape the solution. Participation creates stronger motivation than presenting climate action as one person's finished proposal.
Watch from 9:52Stakeholder empathy turns climate intent into an adopted plan
Sustainability becomes easier to act on when it is expressed in the language of the people making the decision. A business leader may respond to reduced future risk, customer preference, retention, or talent attraction, while an engineering team may see value in simpler and more efficient delivery. The objective is not to disguise the climate goal, but to connect it honestly to responsibilities the organization can measure and own.
Watch from 13:51Relatable feedback helps people understand carbon consequences
A number measured in kilograms of carbon dioxide is difficult to interpret without context. Product experiences can compare an impact with a familiar trip or alternative action, show a positive result after a transaction, and preview a lower-impact choice before the next one. The comparison should educate rather than shame, use defensible calculations, and give the person a clear action they can take.
Watch from 30:34Credible sustainability communication allows deeper inspection
A short label may be necessary at a crowded product touchpoint, but the claim should lead to detailed evidence about what was measured, how the reduction works, and which sources support it. When a company offers no path beyond a broad green statement, that is a warning sign. Transparency, customer testing, and measurable reduction help distinguish useful communication from greenwashing.
Watch from 38:44
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