Defining Global Sustainable Design Processes

I took on the responsibility of leading how sustainable strategy was incorporated into the organisation, as well as defining the sustainable strategy at GSK. This strategy was essential to the progression of sustainable culture and thinking across teams and global markets at GSK, sourcing of ingredients and materials, to design choices of inclusion and manufacturing.

Over a year and a half GSK turned round it sustainability initiatives. With little strategic thinking and implementation pre 2020 to leading globally recognised collaborations with COP 26
By highlighting to executive leadership how the design function touches so many decisions and process within sustainability, I worked with a task force to support the perception and change in understanding across the GSK brands (marketing and design teams).
Running a workshop program to upskill and improve decision making when it came to sustainability.
Leading the Design functions approach to sustainable change, I worked with the team to show how we could implement better design, for better health and planet - using a core collection of design principles in our work.

Process & Remit

1 Billion

Recyclable tubes, to be recycled by 2025

120

Market roll out of 120 market recycling guidance

8

Global brand workshops upskilling marketing and design leaders in sustainable principles

The time to act is now. As GSK we need to not only catch up on the sustainability agenda, but be the brands and business to change the status-quo and lead,

— Andrew Barraclough VP Design

Sustainable Strategy

Healthy World X Healthy Planet

Creating a healthy world for healthy people underpinned the nature of our consumer healthcare business, and the action we could take as brands, employees and teams to make a sustainable impact.

I supported the new sustainability team brought in to make GSK accountable to sustainable action through embedding and updating the design functions processes (since our remit touched almost every consumer facing facit of our products).

Design Process

Improving for better

Human Centred Design process and methods were successfully embedded within the organisation over a number of years. However sustainability across human and ecological elements was always significantly missed until 2021.

With my learnings from my time at Unilever, as well as passion for improving design processes, I led a small team to assess and reiterate how design should be considered across the organisation.

Reporting improvements to the executive leadership, and contributing to the design sustainability strategy, as well as the overarching public company strategy.

Design Principles

Purposeful Direction

As Nike has its 10 Business Principles, or Dieter Rams has 10 principles for good design, we defined our own to ensure we fully embraced a healthier planet for healthier people.

Measuring Change

Ambition & Measurement

To communicate to the executive leadership board the level of change required by the organisation, we illustrated ‘levels of sustainable change’, and highlighted the size and speed in progress that was required.

Our goal to ‘catch up’ with the market and actions of other health and FMCG corporates by 2025 (so to be at level 3.)