Sustainability Sells is a discursive design project; exploring greenwashing and the intersections between ethics, responsibility, and design. This research looks at how commercial design is contributing to the climate crisis and explores how it can also be used as a tool to combat this. I argue that large corporations are lying to individuals and have made it impossible for consumers to make sustainable purchasing decisions.

The final outcome is an immersive and discursive design piece; a store called Goods that only stocks products marked with the official ‘Sustainability Sells’ certification. On the surface this store appears to be an environmentally conscious alternative to the traditional buying experience—but it doesn’t take long to realise that this is not at all the case. With prices listed in CO2 emissions and informative packaging, Sustainability Sells forces people to reconsider what sustainability really means. It highlights the buzzword nature of this word and educates people on the false claims being made on the products they’re buying. Centred around the theme of responsible consumption and production, this project is designed for the consumer, but is in no way a criticism of the consumer themselves.