Sustainability

We’re so excited to have you here, celebrating design in Austin. Though our online events inherently create less of environmental impact, there are plenty of opportunities to reduce impact when attending our in-person events. Some of the initiatives we’re committed to this year:

A Guide to Sustainable Transportation

Getting around Austin

Let’s keep the single-passenger cars to a minimum. This is great for air quality, yes, but also stress levels, personal health, productivity, safety, and more. Austin has abundant options for getting around:

  • Bus and rail (Cap Metro app for tickets, Transit app or Google Maps for directions)
  • Shared bikes & e-bikes (MetroBike)
  • Shared e-scooters (Bird, Lime)
  • Personal bicycles (Available for rent daily downtown, or if you’re local, bring your own!)
  • Pedicabs (Austin’s independently owned, personality-rich fleets of pedal-powered chariots—flag one down to ride!)
  • For ride-hailing, we recommend Lyft—their rides are 100% carbon-neutral.
  • Walking! Seriously, there are several Design Week events downtown. Walking is amazing for your physical and emotional health, and the original zero-emissions way to move.

For a full list of convenient and sustainable transport services in Austin, visit Get There ATX

Getting to Austin

Visiting from out of town? Before you drive alone or book a flight, try out these forward-looking travel services:

  • Megabus, Flixbus, Vonlane, ElecTrip, or Hitch are convenient, sustainable, or even luxurious ways to travel between major Texas cities.
  • Fly with Delta, United, JetBlue, or British Airways and opt into the airline’s carbon offset program

Recommendations for our Hosts

Our hosts are at the heart of Austin Design Week. We provided them with a list of recommendations on how they can make their events more sustainable. This list included:

  • Tips for sustainable swag or mech
  • Food & Drink recommendations
  • Waste handling

Sustainably made Swag

We are working with eco-friendly t-shirt manufacturers to print this year’s ADW volunteer t-shirts.

What you can do

Try a new ride. Consider your options before hopping in your car to drive to ADW. Check out our list of transportation recommendations above and if you drive, consider carpooling!

Pack in it. We recommend bringing a water bottle to events. We’ve advised hosts to have water refill stations.

Help us get better! We’d love to hear your recommendations. Reach out on slack or email: info@austindesignweek.org

A special thank you to Robert Boler for creating this list for us.