Our Climate Journey with Melissa Shiu
“Sustainability—taking into consideration our long-term impact on our planet—should be both a guiding principle and a desired outcome in all design disciplines. The more thoughtfully our products and services are designed, the easier it becomes for people to make informed, sustainable purchasing decisions.”
Melissa Shiu
Director of Design
Melissa has been shaping Zum’s design landscape from its days as an early stage startup. Today as Director of Design, she combines problem solving with creative expertise to craft compelling product and brand experiences for Zum’s customers and end users. With over 20 years of industry experience, she enjoys creating solutions through inspired design, systems thinking, storytelling and collaboration. Outside of work, she stays busy keeping up with her two children, beautifying her garden and cardio-kickboxing.
At Zum, we’re revolutionizing student transportation in order to build a green, sustainable future. What does sustainability mean to you?
Sustainability is our collective responsibility to make choices that allow our society, economy, and planet to flourish in the long term. Individually, that means each of us needs to make conscious, informed lifestyle decisions that acknowledge our planet’s limitations. That means reusing, composting, opting for recycled or upcycled goods, being aware of how much is going into landfill and our oceans. (Hint: it’s too much.)
For many of us, modern consumer products make our lives much more convenient, but these conveniences have come at a cost to the planet. I’m a designer, so I spend quite a bit of time thinking about how we interact with the products and services around us. Design can both inform and influence an audience. Good design communicates; great design can compel and inspire.
Sustainability—taking into consideration our long-term impact on our planet—should be both a guiding principle and a desired outcome in all design disciplines. The more thoughtfully our products and services are designed, the easier it becomes for people to make informed, sustainable purchasing decisions.
Climate change is the single greatest threat to our way of life, but it can sometimes feel abstract, far away, a problem for another time. How has climate change affected you personally?
I grew up in Sydney, Australia. Summers there were hot, I mean crazy—90 to 100 degrees every day, for months. It’s one of the things I remember most about growing up there.
I live in San Francisco now, but I still have family in Sydney. When I go back now, summer days are erratic—overcast and rainy one day, dry and temperate the next. I was there recently, and thought to myself, “This actually isn’t that much warmer than San Francisco.” Which is nuts.
Now I live in California, which has had its own share of wildfires, droughts and floods over the last decade. As a mother of two, I want the world to be better for my kids, but the environmental impact of our modern lifestyles cannot be ignored—we need to change our policies, systems and our habits.
What can Zum do to be a leader in sustainability, to spearhead the charge in the fight against climate change?
First, I think great design can amplify the effectiveness of what we’re doing at Zum. For instance, we’re rolling out electric buses in Oakland, and eventually across the country, which is monumental. But these buses aren’t just forms of transportation—they’re also forms of education. The kids who ride on them are going to learn about EVs because they’re sitting on one twice a day, around thirty five weeks a year. What if we amplified that learning by including infographics on the interior of the bus? Or figured out other ways to help educate and inspire our children about the importance of clean power and sustainability? Our teams have begun this journey and in aggregate, that could really make an impression.
Second, I think Zum should continue noticing, and amplifying, the small things each of its employees is doing to fight climate change. These interviews are a good example of how even a small thing, when it’s shared, can make a bigger difference. I read my colleague Liz’s interview not too long ago, in which she talked about getting rid of plastic bottles at our LA yard. That was music to my ears.
I’m acutely aware of the waste generated by our consumption. Many of us are privileged enough that our children have what they need—but this also means they take a lot for granted and often consume like crazy. So I try and set an example. I’m fortunate to live on a street with a supermarket, farmers market, butcher and baker all within two blocks of my house. Like everyone else, I would use the clear plastic bags available in the produce section of the store when purchasing fruits and vegetables. Then I would walk home and unpack everything. After a while, I realized that the useful life of each plastic bag holding my fruits and vegetables was less than thirty minutes. Although I’m diligent about recycling, I know that the percentage of plastics put into recycling bins that actually get recycled is still low. So now I keep, clean and reuse these clear plastic bags and rarely reach for produce bags at the store. I want the idea of reusing things to be second nature for my kids, so they’ll have different habits.
This blog series is a great avenue for each of us to share the little things we’re doing to make an impact. We can learn, collaborate, innovate and increase our impact as a group.