Green Research

What i've been up to lately is doing more research on my cause, figuring out what does/doesn't already exist within the area, so i'm not pitching an idea thats going to waste my time. My idea has been to influence VCU (the school and student body) to make a shift towards green, whether its recycling, not using as much energy, riding a bike to school, maybe just switching lightbulbs or buying secondhand furniture. All of these contribute in their own way, so its really about how do we do this, but I feel this is one of the questions we address when we actually break into the group. So far, the research I've been coming up with is more reading over text from places such as VCU's policies and OfficeMax, which is contracted through VCU for the majority of their print work, mainly to find out what they're environmental policies are. It seems this kind of influence already exists, but maybe the Design Rebels part of this isn't so much starting the movement, but taking this movement that already exists while using our classes design expertise to further the movement visually. By putting our heads together, we could come up with posters, a website, etc, that will more influence the student body and employees to conserve energy and recycled within the community. I will post the links at the bottom for the sites I've researched thus far. My other idea was to push this same idea onto local businesses (possibly in correlation with ShopRVA), whether its printing menus on recycled paper, recycling beer bottles, using low energy bulbs, there are so many factors that would work into the equation. Overall, the plan is that if we can push local businesses into functioning this way, it will directly impact the local area, making Richmond a more environmentally friendly city as a whole. We could start within the Fan and branch out from there. Maybe RVA Magazine isn't printed on recycled paper?

So what? Well, millions of trees are cut down each year to replenish our continuous irresponsible use of virgin paper. By simply recycling this paper, we cut down on the amount of trees that are chopped down to create paper, but also conserves the amount of water and other resources that are needed within this process. In the end, just something as simple as recycling paper winds up benefiting in many more ways than we intend originally. I feel that Richmond is a close knit community, mainly within the art community, if we can branch out to these galleries, artists, we have a focus group to start with. In my experiences, the artists within the area are the ones who care the most, whether promoting being vegan, environmental issues, that would be key in starting a boom in this movement.

What I do next is to research a little more, probably within local businesses: Sticky Rice, Chop Suey, galleries, any place that uses paper for menus, print work such as ads for upcoming exhibitions. Once I figure out what places are and aren't working within these manners, the next is to plan around that, figuring out the best approach to converting these places. I find my idea to be solid, the next is coming up with a solid name that will stick, ways to advertise. One idea I had was to create false parking tickets, they're green, and you pretty much have to open them, so posting them around the Fan could be a promising idea. Within the envelopes can be facts about conservation: how many trees it takes to, you just helpful information that gets people to visual that actual impact. This is all I've got for now, but there will be more to come. Here are the links of the sites I've jumped around to.

http://www.identity.vcu.edu/index.html

http://www.energychallenge.vcu.edu/index.htm

http://about.officemax.com/html/officemax_environmental_policy.shtml

http://about.officemax.com/html/officemax_environmental_policy_paper.shtml