Genealogy of the Living Principles

In developing the Living Principles for Design, AIGA’s goal was to distill the collective wisdom found in decades of sustainability theories and make it accessible to a broad audience of design practitioners and their clients.

AIGA started by looking at the landscape of the major sustainability visions, manifestos, principles, frameworks and tools that have been developed over the past 50 years and that are relevant to design. They ended up with this document, what they consider the genealogy of the Living Principles. It is also a chronology and a primer of sorts – an invitation for further discovery.

This document lists and explains 30 visions, principles, frameworks and tools, including the Ceres Principles, IDSA Eco Design Pinciples and Practies, The Designers Accord, Biomimicry, Cradle to Cradle, LEED, Okala and more.